


Sweetest Reflection

by thepointoftheneedle



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: AU, Elections, F/M, Political Campaigns, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:48:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27507121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepointoftheneedle/pseuds/thepointoftheneedle
Summary: Betty is running for Congress and she wants the help of Jughead Jones to do it.  It's a little awkward since their one night stand in college ended badly but some values are more important that a little personal embarrassment.  There's some pining, some sexual tension and then there's Donna Sweett who wants everyone to know why Betty isn't fit to serve.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 123
Kudos: 120
Collections: 8th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	1. Get a sticker for our shirts as we head into the sun

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from a quotation by John Quincy Adams about standing by your political principles regardless of the consequences, "Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."
> 
> The chapter titles are from a song by The Mountain Goats called Down to the Ark  
> Here's some of the lyric:  
> The candidates met up in North Dakota  
> And they donned their black robes there in the chapel hall  
> They said a brief invocation to their cloven-hoofed prince  
> And they signed their names in blood on the vestry wall  
> In Christ you know there's neither high nor low  
> And the void will claim all creatures small or bright  
> Seal up the borders or let everybody in  
> In the order of the serpent, there'll be neither left nor right  
> ...  
> We met at VFWs in the snow  
> And we voted down the tax codes, and we voted down the war  
> So many names to choose from, just one way to go.

“I don’t give a flying fuck about what you feel comfortable with Cooper. We need this. You have a duty to the people on this team, to the voters, to me. You’re going to be a Congresswoman; get off your high horse and get it the fuck done.”

She stopped walking for a moment and turned to face him, every atom of her, the calm, unflappable candidate for high office he had helped her to become. “Well, I thank you for your input Jughead. I shall certainly take your suggestion under advisement,” and then she had the gall to smile at him coolly, like he was just anyone, just another hanger-on bringing her some dumbfuck idea. He felt himself beginning to shake with rage. She could make him absolutely fucking crazy in five seconds flat without breaking a sweat. Fuck it all to hell.

Her rival, the appalling stuffed shirt that had the brass neck to stand against her, was sick. The voters had the right to know. A mole in the opposition’s campaign team had snitched and now she needed to leak the news to the press. At the end of one of her news conferences or one of the Town Hall meetings she could just say that, in the light of Mr DuPont’s recent worrying diagnosis, she’d like to extend her best wishes to him and his family. It’d be a nice touch to use his wife’s name; she’d know what it was. No need to gloat or drive the point home with a mallet, just that. It would give them the three point swing they needed and she’d be home dry. There were only two and a half months until the election, she needed the boost. But no, she’d throw away their advantage for some misguided moral high ground and screw over her own people. He knew she struggled with the kind of big picture thinking that was needed but she just had to trust him on this one.

She took her place behind the podium, illuminated by a spotlight that made her hair glow like a halo. As she began to speak he felt the familiar tug of his heart towards her, the moon dragging the tide, irresistible, inevitable. She was the good, pure, sacred thing in his life, the guiding principle and he would follow her anywhere she led him without hesitation or equivocation, always, even while he raged and ranted because she wouldn’t be told what was in her own interests by the person who cared the most about her.

Most of her words to the crowd were his. The message, the import, was entirely hers but he’d clothed the thoughts, straightened the seams, pressed out the wrinkles, added the touch of humour, the bright pocket square, that an orator needed to hold the attention of the crowd. Her voice was clear and unhesitating, just a little lower in timbre than her ordinary speaking voice. Their focus groups had found that more reassuring. The voting public quickly dismissed a female candidate as hysterical or unbalanced if her voice became anything less than perfectly modulated. She always took direction well. He guessed they had the terrible mother to thank for that, years of unrelenting carping would either break a person or force them to develop a carapace so thick that no criticism penetrated their essence.

The crowd laughed at one of his jokes. She hit the punchline just a touch too hard but out here on the North Fork of Long Island maybe they needed just that extra nudge. They weren’t in Queens now. He was proud of her. As he watched her he remembered the momentous - to him if not to her – night they’d met. His college roommate Archie, a hugely muscled football dude with a tender heart more suited to a seven year old girl in a princess dress, had forced him along to his new tootsie’s Christmas party before they all dispersed for the festive season. He was nope-ing right out of that shit at the word "party" but then to make matters worse Archie started to talk about a costume. “Man, there’s no way. These here are my clothes. These are what I wear, always. So unless “impoverished Lit major from Toledo” is a recognised costume forget it.” He gave Archie his most infuriating smile and continued to drink milk from the carton in a way that he knew drove his roomie crazy. 

Archie had whined. “Look dude, I know I’ve said it before but this girl, I mean Jeez, this girl. I want you to meet her. I’m excited about it. Come on Jug. Come and meet her. We’ll work out something about the costume. Please? I promised her.”

He had said it before, roughly every three weeks since he and Jug had become freshman roommates and unlikely buddies more than three years before. This time, however, he’d been mooning over Veronica since before Halloween. Jug wasn’t conceding on the costume but he gave a shrug and a reluctant nod. The next afternoon Archie came home and threw a bag at Jug. “V sent this. You’re George Bailey out of ‘It’s A Wonderful Life.’ She says wear it with sweats.” Jug pulled a dark blue hooped sweatshirt with a large three on the front from the bag. It wasn’t so different from his usual S t shirt so he prepared to sacrifice his sartorial principals on the altar of friendship and go to Veronica’s dumb fucking party. 

He hated it from the moment he arrived. It was like a John Landis Animal House fever dream of a college rager. He’d hoped the keg stand was but a horrific high school memory but, apparently, he had been mistaken. There was honest-to-god beer pong happening, unironically. He met Veronica, as Archie wanted, and was polite and, as far as he could manage it, friendly. Then the hostess was called to a vodka crisis and Archie was dragged off by football dudes so he took a solo cup to forestall the offer of a drink, poured out its noxious contents into a potted plant, and stood in the shadows at the back of the room, judging everyone like it was an Olympic event and he planned to take gold. 

Then he saw her. She was wearing a voluminous white nightshirt that reached her ankles. She had thick socks under it, they peeked out at the hem. He had no idea what she was supposed to be until he spotted that she was carrying a pair of wings on a wire harness by her side. So she was a fairy but she hadn’t gone with the whole “but make it sexy” vibe that the girls dressed as sexy cats or sexy unicorns or sexy vegetables had thrown themselves into. She was a fairy in thick woolly socks. And he thought that made her, by some considerable distance, the sexiest woman in the room. She was a blonde which helped; he was unimaginatively partial to blondes. She moved well too, head up, back straight, no swaying or lurching or teetering on heels. She must have felt his eyes on her because she looked over and grinned. Then she was walking over to him. He was not prepared to actually speak with her and his stomach lurched. He wished he hadn’t poured away the drink. “Hey, you’re George right?” she smiled.

He was about to correct her when he realised that she was talking about the costume. She had to be a movie buff if she’d got it just from the sweatshirt. She gestured down her body and to his shame his eyes followed her hand. The nightshirt was voluminous but there was just a hint of shape at the bust and hip. He felt dry mouthed. “Clarence. I’m Clarence,” she said “AS2, Angel second class.”

Then he gave her a line the cheesiness of which he had been trying to live down ever since that day. “Nothing about you is second class. Straight up angel.” He at least had the decency to look embarrassed at having said it but she actually blushed. It was adorable; he wanted to hug her. And then he wanted to kiss her, fly her to Paris, put padlocks on bridges, buy her roses and sketch her reclining on a chaise longue. He was seriously losing his shit. He wondered, with academic curiosity, if this was how it was for Archie, kind of like being hit by a tsunami but one made of kittens and candy and those heart shaped throw pillows that girls had in their dorm rooms.

She told him that Veronica had tried to talk her out of dressing as Clarence, especially if it wasn’t “Clarence but sexy” but she refused to be swayed. Then her friend had said that Archie’s pal needed a costume so he could be George and they could support each other in their bad choices. “I’m Betty, by the way. And you’re Jughead? Is that right?”

“Guilty as charged,” he smiled. They talked about college, the relative merits of their majors, their grad school plans. He mentioned the MFA applications he was making, worried that she’d think him pretentious. She had applied for law school but felt ambivalent about it, more interested in social work. She wasn’t sure though, she wanted to make a real difference rather than merely ameliorating the symptoms of poverty and inadequate education. That brought them around to politics. He thought her “ask not what your country can do for you,” sentiments were sweetly naïve. He was trying out anarcho-syndicalism, carrying his copy of Proudhon in his messenger bag adorned with copious underlinings and post its. Still, when she talked about her belief in the democratic process he began to feel he was inauthentic, pretending to a radicalism he couldn’t sustain. Anyway he couldn’t really concentrate on making an argument because he couldn’t stop staring at her eyes, so clear and honest. She had trustworthy eyes. He never made passes at girls. When he hooked up at all it was because a girl came on to him and he couldn’t think of a polite excuse before it was happening. But this girl, “this fucking girl!” as Archie would say. They were sitting together on the stairs when, with his heart in his mouth, he put a hand on her knee and looked intently into her eyes to see if he should quietly remove it or just cut it the fuck off and go home without it. She reached down, picked up his hand and, just as he thought she was going to push it away with a look of contempt, she raised it to her mouth and kissed his knuckles. He seriously thought he might explode. Not metaphorically, he actually thought he might die from lust and desire and passion. 

“Your place?” she said and he swallowed hard as he nodded. Well it was Christmas after all and he’d been such a good boy. 

As they walked to the apartment he and Arch shared, his internal monologue was screaming at him. “Don’t fuck this up you total dweeb. If you fuck this up you are going to go right to the East fucking River and throw yourself in. You're such a fuck up. You are so going to fuck this up. Are there piles of laundry on your floor, you no account piece of shit? Because if there are, you deserve to die alone.”

“You ok?” she asked, with a sideways glance.

“Yeah, good, great thanks. How are you?” he replied like he’d run into an aged aunt at the grocery store.

“It’s just, you seem a little…You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, you know. We can go grab a coffee or I can just get a cab back from here.” She looked at him earnestly with those incredible eyes and he felt like there was a tornado inside him, tearing him to shreds.

“Oh I really want to,” he gasped. “I’m just a little nervous, I guess. You’re pretty great. I don’t want to get it wrong. I’m not much of a ladies’ man …obviously.” He grinned sheepishly and then, unexpectedly, her arms were round his neck and her lips were on his and they were kissing in the street like it was VJ Day. And what a kiss. Her lips were soft and delicious, he wanted to consume them. He ran the tip of his tongue over them to taste them and she sighed into his mouth and opened to him. His tongue was in her goddamn mouth and the erotic implications of that act were brought home to him as they had never been before. The warmth, the moisture, the softness. He just wanted to climb right in there and live in her mouth from now on, be entirely hers to do with as she wished. He groaned with desire and she pulled back a little to look at him, those eyes now hooded under long sweeping lashes. He’d turned her on. He could hardly believe it.

They made it back to the apartment and he began unbuttoning her coat with chilled, clumsy fingers, muttering to himself as he flailed. She was stroking his hair and murmuring soft words to him and gradually he began to calm down enough to negotiate her out of the coat and him out of his leather jacket. She twitched the hem of his sweatshirt and he took a deep breath. If she’d been hoping for abs she was going to be disappointed but if she wanted the shirt off then it was gone. Once he was clear of George Bailey he looked back at her; her expression was unmistakably lustful. It made no sense at all to him but if she was, like Titania, under some sort of fairy enchantment that made her fall in love with his donkey headed, scrawny ass then he would take the win. She traced her fingertips over his bicep. “What’s this?” she whispered, tracing the outline of the two headed snake she found there.

“Oh, just umm…some art from a comic book I used to like. Youthful mistake,” he replied, trying to distract her from more questions. Then he remembered, horrified, that he hadn’t even offered her a drink. He’d pushed her through the door and more or less demanded that they get it on without any of the social niceties. He rushed to the refrigerator as she stood, abandoned, in the living room. “Do you want umm…a glass of milk? Or Archie’s got energy drinks in here. We don’t have wine or anything, I could go and get some. The bodega’s just a block over.” The perplexed expression on her face was replaced with a sly smile.

“A glass of milk? You have me confused with a seven year old. Let's try to dispel that misapprehension.” She sat on the couch and took off her boots and then the woolly socks. He didn’t want to examine it too closely but the sight of those socks on his living room rug made him twitch with erotic excitement. He sat next to her, reached over and picked up her naked, vulnerable foot, pulling it into his lap as she watched. He started to stroke from the ankle to her toes, firmly enough not to tickle her. She watched him and then gave him the other foot, sighing and resting her head back on the side of the couch, just enjoying his touch. He was patient. His fingers reached just a little higher on her calf with each stroke, he relished the way she wriggled a little nearer on the couch to encourage his hand higher. Gradually his fingertips were above her shin and he pushed up the nightgown so that he could place a soft kiss on the tender skin inside her knee. She breathed out between her teeth so he did it again and then returned to the stroking, a little higher now. 

By the time his fingers were brushing lightly across her inner thigh, the nightshirt hitched so that he could see a peek of lace at her hip, she was flushed and panting. Her excitement made him ever more interested in the glacial slowness of the advance. He wanted her to be desperate for him, writhing and mewling. Only then would he allow her the release that she needed. Then she surprised him. She snatched away his hand and knelt next to him on the couch, clutching his fingers. “You’re such a tease.” Then she took his fingers and kissed them softly one by one, finally slipping his pointer finger between her lips, swirling her tongue around it and sucking gently. In his mind a voice was yelling “Hot, wet, soft, more,” like some kind of monosyllabic caveman. She seemed to reveal something primal in him that he’d never known existed. She pulled her lips away with a soft popping sound. He very much wanted his finger back in her mouth. She opened her eyes wide and took his middle finger into her mouth, staring at him, sucking a little harder. He groaned. It appealed to both his lust and to his love of metaphor. She had called his bluff decisively and he pulled his hand back and kissed her deeply, pushing her back against the couch, his hand at her breast, grinding against her. 

“Bed?” she muttered and he stood as if he was in a dream and took her hand to lead her to his room. Closing the door behind them she pulled a ribbon at the neckline of the nightshirt and it simply fell away from her. Her skin was pale, flawless. Her limbs were slender, her hips and breasts soft, shapely. His dream girl was here, in his bedroom, looking at him like he might be worthy of her attention. He remembered to breathe at last and pulled off his sweatpants and kicked off his sneakers as he reached out to her. She pushed on his shoulder and he lay back on the bed, shuffling up to the pillows to watch as she knelt on the comforter and then straddled him. He was excited by the way that she wouldn’t simply let him take control, that she insisted on her autonomy. 

“You’re wonderful, just absolutely fucking glorious,” he murmured as she bent to place soft kisses on his chest. 

“Well you’re pretty special too. I’d better tell you. You were set up.”

“What? What do you mean?” A spike of anxiety ran through him.

“I was in your intro to political theory course last semester.” He shook his head. He would have noticed her. She smiled as she explained. “I sat a few rows behind you. I didn’t speak and you didn’t shut up. I had sort of a crush.”

“Wait. What? On me? Why?” He was finding this whole conversation pretty difficult to follow, especially with this beautiful blonde girl astride his hips so he, as hard as he’d ever been, could feel the heat of her, just a fraction of an inch from being inside her.

She smiled. “Anyway when your roomie started seeing Veronica I asked her for an introduction. Hence the party. Hence her sending the shirt. Hence this,” she made a vague gesture that rocked her against him and he moaned at the friction. “I thought I ought to own up. Are you mad?”

“Hmm, am I mad that a spectacular girl went to a whole lot of trouble to make me the priceless gift of her womanhood. I must examine my feelings.” He paused for a second. “Nope, not mad. Pretty fucking flattered but not mad at all. Why didn’t you just ask me to go for a coffee after class? You would have made my semester.”

“I don’t know. I wasn't sure if you were seeing anyone or if you weren’t into girls or whatever. But now I have pretty umm…hard… proof that you are into girls.” She giggled

“I’m into you. Or I would be if you stopped all this jabbering.” With a lurch he flipped them so that he was above her, kissing her throat and stroking his fingers over the lace of her bra. She struggled upright to unhook it and threw if across the room and he moaned long and low before kissing and sucking at her breasts. He felt her fingers on his belly and then she was dipping below the waistband of his boxers to take him in her hand. He moved a hand to reciprocate and found her so soft and wet and warm that he almost came in her hand. He tried to listen, to concentrate as he touched her. He needed to get her there with all the skill he could muster because he was already feeling ragged and uncoordinated. Fortunately she seemed to be well on the way and it took him just a few minutes to learn the kinds of touches that she liked. Soon she was thrusting and quivering and muttering “Yes, oh yes,” under her breath, unable to continue to touch him because she was coming around his fingers. 

She’d barely opened her eyes before she was guiding him towards her, kicking away her underwear, plucking at his boxers impatiently. “Condom?” she whispered. He reached into the nightstand and managed not to embarrass himself as he used it. When he recalled that night in later years, and he recalled it often, he always thought of it as transcendent. Being with her revealed to him how sex could be, how it should be. They had a sense of each other, when to advance and when to retreat, when to heighten the sensation and when to slow down. He knew he would like to make love to her forever. She scraped his back lightly with her fingernails, he bit softly at her shoulder, he pulled at her knee and she let him go deeper and cried as he did it. Overwhelmed by the sensation, losing control, he tried to recite the chronology of Presidents. He was at John Quincy Adams when he felt her beginning to clench and judder. He thought about Andrew Jackson and Martin van Buren and then, unable to remember the thirty one days guy, let himself dive into the wave that he had been trying to outpace, sobbing a little as he came. He opened his eyes slowly to find her smiling at him and stroking his hair. He smiled back and she said “William Harrison.”

“Shit was I doing that out loud?” he groaned.

“Only from John Quincy Adams. Fortunately I found it unbelievably hot that you were trying to hold off.”

“Well I’ll add it to my list of seduction tactics. In fact it’s the only thing on the list.”

“I have some ideas for other things you can try. Come here.”

In Southold on the North Fork of Long Island, on the campaign trail to represent District One, the audience were applauding. Whoops came from the younger crowd at the back as they waved “Cooper for Congress” posters. Jug suspected that at least some of them were not registered voters in the district. She'd done well. He wouldn't mention his reservation about the overcooked punchline. He knew he had a tendency to be hypercritical. Sometimes the candidate just needed an unequivocal word of praise. She approached, a resolute expression on her face, primed for his notes. "Great Clarence. You nailed it, Congresswoman."

"Too soon, Jug. There's a long way to go yet. Get me DuPont on the phone will you?"

"What's the plan?"

"I'm going to tell him that I know, that he's got a mole. I’ll tell him that, if I know, it's only a matter of time before everyone knows. He needs to decide how he wants to play it."

"Crap Coop. He'll spin it. You'll lose the advantage.” Her chin jutted defiantly. "Ok, ok, but let me do it. I'll say what you tell me but I've got a little more edge. Ok?"

"Fine, but seriously Jughead, no threats, no blackmail. Nothing that'll come back and bite us on our asses. I mean it. My name on the ballot, my rules."

Jughead went out to the campaign bus to make the call. He would do as he was told but he'd make sure DuPont knew his position was untenable. He wasn’t happy about it but Cooper had been a pain in his ass since forever so he couldn't claim he hadn't know what he was getting into. 

The morning after their incredible night, after the Lodge Christmas extravaganza , he'd struggled up to consciousness in the late morning to find her head on his shoulder, her blonde hair draped across his chest, her hand on his naked hip. He remembered thinking that it was as perfect a sensation as he could imagine. He lay there like an absolute stalker creep, as still as he could, looking at her as she slept, until she began to stir. "Hmmm, morning George," she murmured.

"Morning yourself, Clarence," he whispered.

"Coffee," she mumbled against his chest.

"Yes beautiful girl. I'll run to the diner on the corner. Want pastries? Bacon? Your wish is my command. I am entirely in your thrall.”

"Mmm, diners are good." She was still half asleep but he'd got her attention. “I’m coming with. French toast...no, waffles and syrup and butter and shards of bacon sharp enough to use as a weapon. Let's go."

He felt a little disappointed as she got up and pulled the nightshirt back on. He'd hoped that she would stay in his bed while he ran down to forage. He could have climbed back in with her to eat breakfast. Now she was up and dressed, it would be impossible to keep her in his apartment forever. Still the lady wanted waffles and waffles she must have. As they passed the newsstand she dashed over and grabbed what seemed an unnecessary and intimidating number of newspapers. She threw them onto the table when they got to the diner and grinned widely. "Perfect weekend morning George, the Post for gossip, the Times for news, the Wall Street Journal for watching the enemy. Pick." He grabbed the Times, discarding pages until he found what he wanted and settled back with the arts section. She began to study the Wall Street Journal as if she were writing a book report on it. They read and ate and drank cups of coffee. Jughead began to imagine a life where this happened every Saturday morning. He could live with that.

They chatted about a mayor upstate who had resigned because a school bus crashed on a dangerous bridge. Betty admired him. ”I think that's pretty principled. He says his office had been warned about maintenance on the bridge and he takes responsibility for everything in his office even if no-one told him."

Jug disagreed. “It’s all a scam. None of them have any principles. He’s presenting himself as a goddamn white knight but actually he just walks away from the mess and some other sucker has to come in and fix it all. He's a coward. Leadership is about making the choices and standing by them, admitting mistakes and then doing better. And it's all so he can waltz back in next election time looking like a man of principle. Fuck him.”

"What would you do then?"

He was only half joking when he said "Spin it so that it's the state's fault, attack the legislature, look like a freedom fighter and stand for the Senate."

"Wow," she said. "Just wow. You've been reading too much Machiavelli." He grinned and twirled an imaginary moustache but she simply shrugged and picked up the Times. He felt a tiny spike of anxiety.

Eventually she looked up again from the newsprint. "You going home today? Toledo right?"

"That's the plan. Home with the dysfunctional family, hole up in my room, try to actually finish a short story I’m writing. I suck at endings.” he smiled, wishing he was spending Christmas in the city instead. “I'm catching a ride as far as Cleveland with a guy from my Russian Lit class. I have to meet him at three. You?"

"Train. It's only a couple of hours. I thought I'd leave tomorrow."

"Oh." His mind was whirring. What was he supposed to say? He wanted this to be something, not to end just because of the dumb ritual of family Christmas but he didn’t want to scare her off by being over eager.

"Yeah." She seemed to be expecting something so he took a deep breath.

"Look I don't know how you usually deal with this kind of situation but..." It was, quite obviously, the wrong thing. In a serious way.

"Usually?" She swallowed hard as her face flushed pink. "I don't **usually** deal with this 'kind of situation.’ And by ‘situation’ here you mean giving me the brush off, right?”

“No, not at all. Listen, we’re about to go on winter break so I just wanted to…”

“Get disentangled before your Christmas Eve hookup?”

“No! I never do this. I don’t have hookups,” he flailed, aware that things were spiralling out of control and not knowing how to stop them.

“So you’re asking me for procedure because I’m the kind of person who has hookups all the time, am I? Well, thanks for the high opinion. I should be grateful you let me come to breakfast. Or is this your equivalent of putting money on the nightstand afterwards?” She seemed to be about to cry.

“Look, you’re making this weird. I just wanted to ask for your number. I’ll call when I get back from break and we can hook up…” Now she looked really mad. “No! Christ I don’t mean hook up, hook up. I mean like go out or whatever. Oh Jesus why is this so hard?” He thought he might cry if this agony continued.

“Ok, clearly you're problem solving right now. Let me make it easy for you." She was gathering her things, chapstick, phone, purse, coat. "In case you're interested I've had sex with two people in my life. Now I'm thinking that one of them was a big mistake."

“Betty please, I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it. Please don't go away mad. Fuck I'm a douche. Let me give you my number at least."

"Don't need it Jones. See you round. Oh and you’re right. You do suck at endings. Merry Christmas.” And she was gone. He sat amongst the newsprint until two in the afternoon, staring into a cup of coffee as bitter and black as his mood and wondering how he could have fucked the day up so royally when it had begun with such luminous promise. 

He'd had some shitty Christmases but that one was up there with the classics. He was back in the city before New Years but when he went to Veronica's place to plead for Betty's number Ms Lodge sent down to the doorman that he was not invited up. He skulked home in the snow and watched the ball drop on tv, alone, hating himself.


	2. So many names to choose from, just one way to go.

Alone on the campaign bus in Southold he dialled DuPont’s Congressional Campaign HQ. He was put through to the campaign manager first and explained to him that he needed to speak to the candidate. He’d met Jonathan on several occasions and, though he didn't seem like an out and out bad guy, he certainly didn't endear himself to Jughead now by refusing to let him talk to the main man. Eventually he said, "Put him on Jon or I'll get irritable and ignore the boss lady and go to the Post with this. And I'll make sure everyone knows whose fault that is."

"Fine Jones. Hold the line."

DuPont kept him waiting for a minute or so but Jug could be patient when he knew he was holding the winning hand. "Jones, you calling to concede already?” DuPont blustered.

"No Frank. She's making me call against my better judgement to let you know that your office is leaking. I don't know who is responsible but right now I'm looking at a scan of a letter from your physician." There was silence from Dupont; Jug thought he could hear DuPont’s dreams sinking without trace like one of those treasure laden Spanish galleons. High hopes come to naught. "Look man, regardless of our differences, I'm sorry. It's a rough deal."

"Cut the bullshit Jones. You'd dance on my grave given the chance. What do you want? Or more to the point what does she want?”

"She wants to give you the opportunity to get your house in order. She says she's not going to leak it. You know how she rolls. I've got my office locked down pretty tight. It won't come from us. But, like she says, if we know, it's just a matter of time before the press knows. You can't hide it and your team isn't loyal. You’ve got some issues, man."

"I don't know what your strategy is here Jones but I'm getting pretty tired of Ms Cooper billing herself as America's sweetheart. You've made your play so, if you'll excuse me." He hung up.

Jug smiled to himself. DuPont’s secrecy and scheming meant he was always seeing hidden plots everywhere. "Sometimes the whale is just a whale, Frankie." He thought he'd played the call pretty well. He knew Dupont's party was prone to paranoia and he'd pressed those buttons firmly. He'd probably get mad, maybe sack the team, and then he'd have to make a statement anyway.

Although he hated to admit it it was a sound piece of strategy. They had been nothing but solicitous of the health of their rival. Even if, as he assumed was the case, the call had been recorded they were above reproach. It would have been a bad look to bully a sick man, to make political capital out of his affliction. He doubted that they would get the same consideration in return. He had to admit she was becoming a smart competitor; not gullible in that way that some very good people were.

After their ill fated tryst he hadn’t seen her for a year. Then on the first night of a Christmas visit with Archie and Veronica he was awakened by the buzz of the entry phone, the apartment door opening and a whispered conversation in the hallway. Concerned, he crept to the door and listened. “She’s impossible V. She makes me so crazy,” a voice murmured between sobs. Betty. He’d looked for her, of course, that Spring but she’d avoided him and then he heard on the grapevine that she was seeing someone so he’d missed his chance. He’d been accepted onto the MFA at the Writer’s Workshop in Iowa and moved west after after graduation while she was studying to be the next RBG at Columbia Law according to Archie and Veronica. Then in November his dad called him, as he languished out there in the cornfields, and told him that he was going to spend Christmas in Alaska with JB and her girlfriend’s family. Jughead wanted to see his sister of course, but the travelling, the expense, the purchase of cold weather clothing and the enforced sociability with Alaskans he didn’t know, all seemed too much to contemplate. His dad tried to persuade him by telling he’d meet the cost but Jug didn’t even want to think about how he would manage that on his pay as a short order cook. He told his pop that he needed to get some writing done, that the travelling would be too much, that he wanted to see his friends anyway and eventually FP agreed to go alone. FP had obviously called Archie right afterwards because, by the end of the evening, plans had been put into place for Jug to spend Christmas with Archie and Veronica in New York. His dad’s solicitousness was the very epitome of too little too late on the parenting front but he was touched by the gesture so he allowed himself to be corralled.

Now Veronica’s voice was low outside his door, trying to calm her distraught friend. “You’ll stay here. We’ll have a great time. The only thing is…Jughead’s here. But it’ll be fine. Really.”

“Oh no. No, I’ll go. I’ll just go home. I'll be ok.” His heart felt heavy that she would rather spend Christmas alone than encounter him. He pulled sweatpants over his boxers and stepped into the hallway. She looked even more beautiful. He found, to his alarm, that he wanted to embrace her, to hold her against his skin, to kiss her hair, to wipe away her tears.

“Hey Betty,” he offered, trying to sound conciliatory. “Please stay. If you’d rather not be near me, I’ll go. You should be able to spend Christmas with your pal. I’m so sorry I was a dick. I kicked myself afterwards. I’ll go pack up.”

She looked up through lashes jewelled with tears. “No, it really wasn’t your fault Jughead. Look I’m just being a drama queen. We can be civil. It’s ancient history now. We’ll both stay. If that’s ok V?”

“Of course darling. We’ll have such fun. Now let’s get you settled. Night Jughead.” As she passed him Veronica whispered, “Thanks,” under her breath.

It was a good time. He made her laugh, she made him giddy and foolish. As they baked sugar cookies together she mentioned that she planned to try to get involved in student governance and he asked about her platform. She listed a number of serious and worthy initiatives and he cautiously suggested that maybe she could include some vote getters in the mix. “All those ideas are great but your electorate are the eighteen to twenty fours not over sixty fives. They’re interested in fun, not just the resources of the chaplaincy team. Bread and circuses Betty, that’s how democracy works. You have to sweeten the deal. Are there social activities too?” She didn’t know but, when they searched the Columbia Law School Student Senate website, they found several that she could work on. They talked strategy and he helped with the wording of her campaign flyers. He had a blast and thought they did good work. Then, on Christmas Eve, as they ate breakfast in Veronica’s well appointed kitchen, a huge bouquet was delivered for her. She blushed as she read the card.

Veronica helped her split the flowers between three enormous vases. “Her boyfriend, Adam. He’s so cute. He’s besotted with you B. He’s with his folks in the Hamptons.” Jug smiled as his guts tried to twist up his oesophagus to throttle him as an act of mercy to prevent him from having to hear more about fucking Adam and the fucking Hamptons. He reflected that if he hadn’t screwed things up with her she’d be receiving a battered posy of poisoned ivy and dandelions right about now and V would be saying “Her boyfriend Jughead. He’s with his deadbeat dad in a trailer park behind a junkyard in Toledo.” Clarence had a lucky escape. She left to join Adam a couple of days after Christmas and Jug fled back to the cornfields to lick his wounds.

She texted him in February to tell him she’d been elected to the Law School Senate and to thank him for his help. He texted back that she was welcome, he’d enjoyed their collaboration. He signed off “best to you and Adam” and she replied with the diamond ring emoji. So that was that.

Life moved on even though he felt stuck and sad. He graduated again, the novel he’d written to satisfy the requirements of his MFA found a publisher and he stayed in Iowa for cheap rent and solitude while he got the rewrites done. While he waited for publication he started the difficult second novel and, after the first book was released to pretty flattering reviews, he was a little shocked to he find himself in the centre of a bidding war. With a substantial advance and royalty payments in his checking account The Big Apple seemed like the place for a solvent and increasingly self assured young writer to be. He packed up his flannels and his Chemex coffee maker and moved back east, washing up in Archie and Veronica’s spare room while Veronica helped him look for an apartment. It was an unlikely friendship but she made him laugh and he was touched by her devotion to his pal. She also asked smart questions of landlords that he would never have considered and stopped him from becoming instantly enamoured of places that were completely impractical because they claimed some tenuous association with Ginsberg or Lovecraft. When he found the perfect place in Red Hook she negotiated the deposit down to a less absurd sum, citing the inadequate air conditioning and the inconvenience of the basement laundry room. The realtor walked away, saying, “Your wife’s a tough operator Mr Jones. I thought I was going to end up paying you for a while there.”

He bought her dinner to say thanks and they giggled at the realtor’s mistake. “Is Clarence married yet?” he asked over Korean barbecue, trying to sound casual. 

“No, she keeps having to put it back because she’s running for a committee or heading up some commission or other. Poor Adam seems exhausted by it all. But she’s driven I guess. She’s teaching at CUNY Law. You should call her. She asks after you.”

In the end he didn’t call but he found out her work address and mailed her the first book with a note. “Hi Clarence. Thought you might like to see that I actually nailed an ending. Regards to you and the mister, George.”

She texted him a week later. “Loved the book. Congrats.” Then nothing.

A fortnight after that he was sweating, swearing and hopping around his apartment when there was a knock at the door. He was expecting Chinese food so he opened the door in his boxers only to find her standing there looking like an angel, first class. “Fuck!” he yelled and threw himself back from the door. “Sorry, fuck. Come in. Wait there I’ll just get dressed, sorry.” He threw himself into the bedroom to pull on jeans and a t shirt and then took a deep breath before facing her again. She was on her knees in the living room poring over a diagram and holding an allen wrench. “Hey, look you don’t have to do that. There must be a misprint anyway. It’s impossible.”

“Is that blood?” she asked, pointing to a corner of the shelving unit that he had been attempting to build since he woke up in a sweltering apartment with no central air. 

“Yeah. I fell over it just before you arrived. Like I say, it’s impossible.”

“Well you’ve got this piece upside down, that’s the problem. Here, turn it round.”

By the time the Lo Mein arrived the pile of wood and metal was recognisably furniture. He rummaged for extra chopsticks in a cardboard box that he still hadn’t unpacked and they shared his meal. “What are you doing here Clarence? Not that I’m not delighted to see you and your engineering skills,” he asked.

“I want your help. I’m planning to run for New York City Council and I want you to manage my campaign.”

“Republican I assume,” he said, with a straight face, watching the horror and then the realisation that he was teasing pass across her beautiful face. 

She swiped a hand out to slap his shoulder. “Seriously, I could use your help.”

He barked out a laugh. “Why me? I’m a novelist not a politician. You ought to get someone with experience,” he protested. “You need an insider.”

“No, I really don’t. I don’t want a party machine. I’m not going to run like a politician. I want to make a difference not build a career. Adam and I are living in Long Island, I work at the Law School, I know the neighbourhoods. I think I’ve got something to offer.”

“Of course you have. I’m just not sure I have.”

“Look Jughead, I have a tendency to be over serious. I come across as too earnest sometimes, naïve I guess. I need your gift with words, your cynicism, your humour. You’d spot a hustle from a mile away where I’d miss it. If you don’t want to waste your time on Long Island politics I totally get it but I think we’d be a great team.” He shrugged, nodded in assent and stuffed noodles into his mouth so he wouldn’t tell her how he admired her, how much he still wanted her.

As she helped him finish constructing the shelves they circled the topic of him helping her. She couldn’t pay him anything except for expenses, there was no budget to speak of. “Adam’s folks offered to make a donation but I don’t want to take money from anyone outside the district. It feels wrong.”

“Well that’s the kind of idealism that’ll make sure you never get elected. It’s all a confidence trick Betty. You must see that. These guys spend a lot of money to get elected and then they take kick backs and make connections that make them a lot more. Still I guess you can feel good about your impeccable moral stance when you lose,” he sniped.

“Well, yeah. If I have to sell my soul to get in then I’ll be no better than the rest of them. It won’t be me any more. The people have to make up their minds, they get me with ugly campaign leaflets and dresses from ASOS or they get some slick operator who doesn’t have a clue how much a quart of milk costs but prints up fancy billboards. I have to believe that the voters aren’t dumb,” he snorted at that, “ok, that enough of them aren’t dumb. That’s just the way it has to be.” 

He looked at her intently for a moment or two before nodding. “Ok Clarence, I’m in. Let’s see if the people of District…”

“Twenty six,” she supplied with a smile.

“…if the good folks of District Twenty Six know a good thing when they see it. I have to say that I’m less than optimistic though.” He held out his hand and she shook it in acknowledgement of a deal. It was a good firm handshake without being one of those terrible vice like grips that demonstrate someone’s incipient megalomania. He was aware that he wanted her to kiss his knuckles as she had done once before, a long time ago, but he squashed that feeling down resolutely. This wasn’t about his unresolved crush, it was about adding a little public service to his life, about giving back. At least that was what he told himself.

He realised she was speaking to him and struggled to bring his focus back to her words. “That’s the great thing about that cynicism of yours. It’s all a façade. You’re George Bailey underneath. Your optimism took a beating somewhere back there but it’s pretty easy to get you to have a little faith in people again,” she smiled. Then she was putting on her shoes and heading for the door. “There’s just one thing Jughead,” she hesitated.

“What?” He asked, half laughing at what else she could possibly want from him.

“Adam. He’s great but he can be a little insecure. Can we not mention that we hooked up that one time? It’s all ancient history anyhow and we both moved on years ago. Is that too weird?”

“Not weird. I was hardly going to swap notes with your fiancé anyway. My lips are sealed.” As he said it her eyes flickered down to his lips and he thought, just for a second, that she was about to kiss him. She didn’t. She grabbed her purse and was gone, leaving him with his head torturously full of his memories of their night, a night that he hadn’t moved on from, not at all.

And now, five years after they teamed up to try for the City Council, here she was running again, for Congress this time. On the bus heading back towards the city that never sleeps he talked her through her engagements for the next few days. She looked pretty tired but he knew better than to tell a woman that. “You ok Clarence?”

She smiled thinly. “Yeah I guess. Pretty exhausted. What about you? How’s Jenny?”

“She’s fine. Better than ever. She moved out.” Betty’s mouth fell open in shock. He looked at her lips, his heart thumping. When his eyes fluttered up to hers he saw sympathy and something else. He though that it might, just possibly, be hope. 

When he’d agreed to help with the City Council election half a decade ago he’d been single and, although he knew he was taking his heart out for her to stab it all over with button badges that said "Cooper for City Council,” he’d figured it was his heart and he’d had every right to injure it if he chose. She was with Adam, was marrying Adam as soon as she caught a break in her schedule, and he was taking this last opportunity to be near her. Then he’d be done with it, finally over a one night stand that had happened a whole administration ago. She was that most nostalgic and poignant of ghosts, the missed connection, the great love that simply never blossomed. It appealed to his romantic, artistic sensibilities to think himself Tristan to her Isolde, Orpheus to her Eurydice, Abelard…Well… maybe there were some prices that were too high after all. 

And then he met Adam. He had assumed that he would dislike her Hamptons-holidaying, silver spoon suitor but actually he was genuinely a good guy. Jug had travelled out to Long Island to talk over the setting up of bank accounts and applying for matched funding since she was determined not to take donations from special interests and corporate sponsors. When he arrived Adam opened the door and wrapped an arm around his shoulder to bring him indoors. “Hey Jughead, thanks so much for agreeing to help Betty. I’ve no political brain at all. I can make the coffee for volunteers or drive folks round to knock on doors but that’s the extent of my contribution. With you on board, a famous writer, she’s actually got a shot at this.” He was a good looking guy, very blonde, muscular and solid. If Jug was the negative, Adam was the full colour eight by ten print. She certainly didn’t seem to have a consistent type. Jug could clearly see how much Adam cared for her by the way his eyes followed her when she got up to refill her wine glass or just to pace while she worked through a policy idea. He could see that he’d be a good, supportive husband. Chisholm would be an assured First Gentleman too if her ambitions went that far, much better than an ex delinquent from a trailer park with a gang tatt on his arm and honest to god criminal associates.

When Betty went into the next room to set up an interview with local tv for the coming week Adam span the dude conversation wheel of fortune. When sports was a resounding miss, he tried superhero movies, the best routes for commuters from Manhattan to Long Island and finally, with video games, he scored. When Betty came back from her call it was to find them yelling at each other as they teamed up for some black ops wet work in a virtual East Berlin during the cold war. Once he could consider Adam a pal Jug could really lean into the guilt and self hatred when he jerked off in the shower to thoughts of the guy’s fiancée. It didn’t stop him doing it though. Those were a difficult few months. 

They built a team of volunteers in a tiny, cramped campaign office just across Court Square from the law school. They attracted young folks mostly, excited by Betty’s youth and determination. Lots of kids from the law school came on board and brought students from other campuses with them. The campaign office became a vibrant, exciting place to spend time. The real election was the primary. If she could secure the nomination she was pretty close to being a shoo-in for the seat. There were, however, six candidates seeking the honour of serving and a limited pool of eligible registered Democrats to persuade. They needed to secure a large slice of a small pie in order to get onto the City Council ballot and a hundred votes could make all the difference. Betty was knocking doors all day and into the evening, he was taking more than his share of turns on the phones as well as trying to eke out the money, keep the books and write her speeches. With every call they made they had so many goals. Was this person registered to vote in the primary? If not, could they be persuaded to change their party allegiance? If they were eligible would they even turn out to vote? Could they bring anyone else with them? Would they give financial support to the campaign? Would they host an event to persuade others to vote? Almost every interaction turned up some difficulty with a landlord or an employer that Betty would note in her neat cursive handwriting and then, late into the night, write letters or make calls to try to help. She was doing the work of a council member before she was even on the ballot. She was frustrated with his constant number crunching when he told her she needed to go stand outside a particular subway station to talk to voters because the demographic was better for them. “They’re all constituents Jug. I want to help all of them.”

“Well you can help them all once you’re elected. Until then, just help registered Democrats,” he replied.

‘I hate that. It’s cynical.”

“That’s what I’m here for boss,” he smiled and gave a mocking salute, one finger to his brow. She looked at him quizzically but clearly decided against saying what was on her mind. He knew her well enough by now to sense that it would come back around.

As they worked together to prepare answers for a radio interview late one evening, she threw her pen across the desk in frustration. He raised an eyebrow at her uncharacteristic lack of composure. “I just hate this Jug. I didn’t start this to fight against my own party. Maybe one of the others would be better. Why do I think I have anything to offer?”

“Well that’s the real question Betty. Why the hell **are** you doing this? This is as far from glamour politics as you get. No Air Force One for City Council members. It’s public service at its grimiest, responsibility without privileges. You could have a nice life if you let this go.” He swallowed hard before saying, “You could get married, move out of Long Island City which, while it has its own unique charms, really ain’t the Hamptons. Instead you’re putting yourself in the way of endless late nights, sob stories and responsibilities, abuse from opponents and constituents, public scrutiny, poor remuneration given your qualifications. If you don’t know why you’re doing it you better give us all a break and back out now.”

“Thanks for the pep talk Jug,” she smiled ruefully. “Why are you here?” He smiled to himself. He’d been waiting for this. “You could be on a beach somewhere writing the next book instead of in this grubby, funky smelling room in Queens.”

He’d already formulated a smart politician’s answer, truthful without giving too much away. “Because I believe in you Clarence. I think you can do some good here. I know you want to. So I’ll back you. You just need to decide if you’ll back yourself.”

“I know that I want to make a difference. I just don’t see the point in anything else. I like teaching well enough but I’m a lawyer making more lawyers. What do we do in this country when everyone’s a lawyer? It has to be more important to help the people who can’t make rent, who don’t have healthcare, who can’t get their kids into school, or who get locked up just for who they are not what they’ve done. It drives me crazy that everyone knows what’s wrong but no-one comes out and says it. You can’t have the kind of inequality that we have in this city without the whole thing imploding sometime. It’s time we faced up to how we sold our dream for a quick buck. It’s a such a lie that anyone can better themselves. In Queens twenty percent of kids drop out of high school before they graduate, eighteen percent of kids under twelve are living in poverty, a third of single mothers are almost destitute. We’re setting those kids up to fail. This is the richest country in the world, and kids are going to sleep hungry or cold, here in our city. If I sit back and do nothing then that’s saying it’s ok to do nothing and if we all do nothing then nothing will happen.” She sat back, slightly breathless and he grinned at her. He liked it when she was passionate about the work. He could imagine for a moment that that was why he was here, in the cause of social justice. It wasn’t a total lie but if it hadn’t been Clarence he would never have been involved. It was all about her in the final analysis.

“I think you’re ready for the radio,” he said, grabbing his jacket and heading for the door, squeezing her shoulder as he passed. She reached up and grabbed his hand, stopping him.

She looked at him with real curiosity. “You deflected. What are you here for Jug? Really, I mean. Why do you put up with my drama?”

He couldn’t tell her that being close to her was at the top of the list of reasons that he turned up at this cramped, chaotic office everyday, for no pay, to be harassed and hassled by campaign volunteers, so he perched on the corner of the desk and told her reason number two. “I guess I know what it’s like to really need help and not get it. I want to be there for the kids who think no-one gives a shit about them, or help you to be there at least. Give them a guardian angel.”

“Tell me. What’s the story?”

“Ah no-one wants to hear someone else’s trauma. Boring as shit.”

She reached out and touched his arm. “I want to hear it Jug. I’d like to know.”

“Christ, ok. So I grew up poor.” She nodded encouragingly and he sighed before continuing. “I’ll give you a vignette from the early life of Jughead Jones. It’s Ohio in like February or something. Bitter cold. I guess I’m maybe eight or nine in this scene. I’d finish school, where I would have spent an educational few hours being beaten up by popular kids and disregarded by teachers, skulking down corridors to avoid being thrown into a dumpster or just getting straightforwardly and unimaginatively beaten up. I was weird and none too clean and small for my age. So I’d get out of school and go pick up my baby sister from kindergarten. Most days we’d walk home, three and a half miles. She was little and slow and my sneakers crushed my toes because there was no way our household income could stretch to new shoes just because my feet grew. When we got back to the trailer I’d try to scrounge up some food for Jellybean to stop her yelling. Sometimes there was nothing and I’d have to try to distract her from being hungry by telling her stories or trying to make her laugh. We were always hungry. Once a week we’d walk to the bus stop instead and meet my mom on her afternoon off from whatever crappy minimum wage job she was working at the time. We’d take the bus to the grocery store even though there was another store much nearer. Took me a long time to realise that we travelled further so that she didn’t have to steal from folks we knew. We’d push the cart around the store but we knew not to even ask for the cereal with the characters on the box, not to even look at the candy or the soda. Once we were done my mom would hand over food stamps and coupons and count out nickels and dimes to pay. Sometimes there was enough but mostly there wasn’t and something would have to go back onto the shelves. There would be a queue of folks tutting and shaking their heads at this woman with these two ratty looking, dirty kids who couldn’t even pay for her groceries. I always used to think that if they were in such a goddamn hurry they could have just given her ten dollars and we’d have been gone. Then we’d pack up a week’s groceries for a family of four into two or three plastic grocery bags and carry them to the bus stop. Cold. I had no gloves. I had to carry one of the bags because my mom was holding Jellybean’s hand. Swapping the bag from hand to hand, the plastic cutting in, making these white and scarlet ridges in my palm. The bus home, condensation on the windows, my mom crying if the grocery store had been really bad. Getting home, my mom unzipping her jacket and taking out the pack of bacon or the block of cheese she’d hidden in there and trying not to look ashamed. “We do what we gotta do to get by kiddo. Right?”

“I’d say “Right momma,” and she’d cry a little more and my dad would come back and look at how little food there was and how cold we were and turn on his heel and go get drunk because every breath we took told him that he wasn’t enough, was a failure, was a loser. He couldn’t change that so he drank until it didn’t matter. Course then he owed money and the guys with baseball bats came and took the tv or my mom’s wedding ring, so he just got drunker. One day she couldn’t take it anymore and took Jellybean and left. Then there was me and him. That’s another story.

“I made it out but it was close and I had the good fortune to be straight and white and male. If I’d been Black or, fuck I don’t know, trans or something, I just don’t know what would have happened. Nothing good. So, in answer to your question I’m here because, for a long time, no-one was there for me. ” 

He sat back in the chair, a little embarrassed by the speech but, when he looked up at her, there was no judgement in her eyes. “Jughead Jones, you might be my hero, you know that? Thank you for telling me. I needed to hear it.”

Somehow sharing some of his history with her made him even more tragically in love with her. He reassured himself that he just needed to get through the campaign and then it would be over. He would be able to stop squeezing lemon juice into the thousands of tiny cuts that wanting her, loving her and seeing her with Adam inflicted. A selfish part of him almost hoped the primary would go against them. In the end there were sixteen thousand votes cast for the six candidates. Clarence had three thousand and one. The closest opponent was two thousand eight hundred. It was close but she was through. There was a victory party that he left early because he was scared that with the heightened emotions of the evening, her flushed and happy with success, he’d lose all control and tell her that he was in love with her which would be such a dick move with Adam right next to her, smiling proudly. Jug picked up his jacket and headed for the door. One of the campaign volunteers, Jenny, looked over as he left. “Leaving so soon?” she smiled. 

He grinned, “Not much for parties. Great work by the way. Thanks so much.”

“She’s a lucky girl,” she smiled, a little wistfully.

“Who Betty? Hard work more than luck,” he replied, a little sharply.

“Not the nomination. Having two great guys in love with her at once.” He stared at her and flushed scarlet, losing any plausible deniability. She grinned. “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me. See you for the election.” He nodded and scooted out of the door wondering how many of the other volunteers knew he was a lovesick puppy. That was embarrassing.

The universe decided to really weigh in on his masochism two weeks before the City Council election. He was the last one in the office, working simultaneously on the two speeches that needed to be prepared for the results party. The concession speech was weirdly easier. She would want to be gracious, to thank her opponent for a fair campaign and to mention the volunteers who had taken the calls, printed the leaflets and helped her to remember exactly what she was fighting for. He knew it was unlikely that the speech would ever be used. There had been no disaster in the campaign and the other party rarely polled more than three thousand of the twenty thousand votes that would be cast. The victory speech was consequently harder to prepare. As he pored over his notes there was a knock at the door. Adam stood outside, grinning. Jughead let him in and he took a seat on the other side of the desk. “So Jughead, you’re a writer.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“I need some help. I’m writing my wedding vows but I’m really stuck. I kind of wish I’d taken my mom’s suggestion more seriously and got Betty to do the whole conversion thing and just booked a big old smells and bells Catholic ceremony. Instead I have to bare my soul in front of the world instead of just in front of my confessor.” Jughead’s stomach dropped like he was in the express elevator at the Empire State. She was getting married. Imminently. And she hadn’t even told him let alone invited him. Obviously he wasn’t anywhere near as important to her as she was to him.

He scrambled together an expression of polite congratulations. “Wow Adam, that’s…great news. Yeah, I’m not sure how down with conversion she would be. Look, I’m sorry, but should you be telling me this? She hasn’t mentioned the wedding. Maybe she’s trying to keep it low key. Like close friends and family.” Adam laughed and slapped Jughead’s shoulder, all confident bonhomie. Jug had a sudden terrifying urge to kill him, wanted to put his boot on Adam’s throat and push down even though he genuinely liked him. He’d thought those violent impulses had been well and truly left behind but apparently they were just buried deep.

“Well you’ve seen more of her in the last few months than her friends or family so I guess she’d have told you first if she’d known. I’m organising it all myself as a surprise. You have to come of course,” Adam smiled proudly. Jughead wondered if this guy had actually met Clarence. She would hate this idea with the passionate heat of a thousand suns. To not be consulted on every solitary stem of flowers, every sprinkle on a cupcake, every shade of tablecloth (cornflower, definitely cornflower) would make her wild with stress and all the fuss would drive her even further off kilter. Adam ought to know that; why didn’t he know that? On one hand Jughead wanted him to go right ahead, blithely organising something that she’d hate so that when her prospective groom belatedly informed her that she was getting married “right now!” she’d tell him that she absolutely fucking wasn’t and they’d break up and she’d hitch a ride in a bakery van or some shit and turn up at Jug’s door in a sodden wedding dress in a rainstorm, because it’s always raining in these scenes (is it? I hadn’t noticed). He’d kiss her and she’d tell him she’d been so blind and they’d go to bed together and he wouldn’t fuck it up this time.

But he couldn’t stand to have her unhappy and embarrassed in front of her friends and family. He was going to have to give Adam a heads up. He put a hand on Adam’s shoulder as he said, “Hey man, this is completely not my business but I think you need to discuss this with her. She’s not one for surprises. She’s sort of a control freak. Give her some warning right?” 

Adam looked irritated and then he looked pretty damned concerned. He suddenly realised that he was taking a terrible risk. “Shit Jughead. You think she’ll bolt don’t you?”

“Hey I didn’t say that. No, just … she’ll enjoy it way more if you don’t spring it on her. When is it?”

Adam had arranged the wedding at his folks’ place in the Hamptons for a couple of weeks after polling. A month. Jughead guessed Adam could have worse timing but it was hard to see how. She’d be trying to recruit staff and get her act together before taking office. She’d want to be up and running right away. Jug gave him a few ideas for vows, feeling the bile rising with every word but Adam was preoccupied and inattentive. Eventually the crestfallen husband-to-be let himself out of the campaign office leaving Jughead at his desk amongst the empty chip bags and coffee cups, alone in a single pool of yellow light from a desk lamp wondering how his life had careered so badly off the rails.

The rest of the campaign was something of a blur. He though she seemed stressed and distracted and he barely saw Adam. He wondered what their conversation had been like but he didn’t feel entitled to pry. Anyway they were so busy that there just wasn’t time. Betty felt driven to knock on every door and to talk to folks on the street at every opportunity. She wanted to meet the voters, have them know her and be assured they could bring their concerns to her. Eventually they went to the polls. Jug was sad that he couldn’t vote for her since his place was outside the district. He felt guilty that he hadn’t moved. 

When the numbers came in there was no wild celebration. She nodded solemnly in acknowledgment of the win, made her speech, kissed her fiancé and stepped out of the office to talk to the local press away from the whoops and yells of the celebrating volunteers. He peered through the window a while later and saw her standing there, alone, in the cold night. He slunk out and stood next to her. “Ok Clarence?” he asked, leaning forward to catch a glimpse of her downcast eyes.

“Yes. I guess so. This was what I wanted after all, wasn’t it? I just, I don’t know, I thought it would feel different. I guess I’m just intimidated by all the work there is to do. By their trust.”

“Let’s take a walk. They won’t miss us for ten minutes,” he suggested. He knew she always found it easier to talk when they drove somewhere or walked alongside each other. He suspected she found it easier to let the competent, capable persona fall away without direct eye contact. They strolled down the street as she enumerated her fears of letting people down, of not being smart enough, of not knowing the systems well enough. He reassured her that she would be able to deal with anything that the job threw at her, “You just keep sticking to your principles and you won’t go far wrong Clarence, they’ve got you this far.” By the time they turned up the alleyway that led to the back of the office she was even smiling a little. They got to the door and she put a hand on his arm and looked up at him. He couldn’t have said who leaned in first. It might have been him but, before he was even aware it was happening, her mouth was hot against his, his tongue forceful against her bottom lip. She pressed herself against him as if she was trying to climb inside his skin and his arms were around her. It was everything he wanted and he simply couldn’t have let her go to save his life. A rushing, falling sensation in his belly was telling him that he would have her in this dirty alley on top of the goddamn dumpster if she would let him and the little moans and gasps that came from her indicated that she just might. That warm softness that he forever associated with her was overwhelming. Her fingers were tangled in his hair and he began to reach forward to touch her breast when he remembered Adam and flinched. That instant of hesitation shattered the moment into dangerous splinters like a rock through a plate glass window and she flung herself away from him.

“Shit, oh shit, Jug. Christ I’m screwing everything up aren’t I?”

He couldn’t say anything coherent so he just said what was uppermost in his mind. “Adam?”

“Oh my God. He’s in there with his parents looking forward to our wedding and I’m sticking my tongue down another guy’s throat next to a dumpster. I’m going to hell and I don’t even believe in hell. Shit, I am the worst person in the world. So much for principles.” She put her face in her hands, her shoulders shrugged uncomfortably as she dragged in a deep breath. Looking up she had tears, bright in her eyes, “That was terribly wrong Jug. I’ve made commitments to Adam. I need to go and face them. Right?”

“Of course. No, totally. I’m so sorry. Moment of madness. Look, I’m going to go home. I don’t want to make things difficult for you. You’ll be a wonderful council member though Betty. Truly.”

“Thanks for all you did Jug. I couldn’t have had a better campaign manager.” She reached out and took his hand and the danger was back, electricity in their fingers from the innocent touch. He pulled his hand away and went back into the office, grabbing his jacket and messenger bag and saying bye to a few guys. 

Heading for the door he felt a hand on his arm. Jenny was looking at him questioningly, “OK?” She asked, concern in her soft brown eyes.

“Yeah, so exhausted. I suppose it just hit me.” 

“Let me give you a ride back to the city. You look terrible. Come on I’m parked just up the street.” She was shrugging on her coat as she spoke. He really was exhausted so he let her look after him, following her meekly.


	3. Seal up the borders or let everybody in

As Jenny drove him back to his apartment on election night he’d spilled his metaphorical guts all over the interior of her Hyundai. She was a sympathetic listener and when he’d held his head in his hands and moaned out his shame and regret she’d put a hand on his back to show her solidarity with his struggle. She’d been through a painful break up herself and sympathised even though, as he said wryly, he was struggling to get over a one night stand that had happened years ago not a relationship like the one she’d had with shared china and a cat. She laughed at that and said that it wasn’t a competition. “If it hurts it hurts Jughead. And she’s great. I mean, a little scary, but great. You’re right to be sad. But maybe spending all that time with her wasn’t the healthiest way to get over her?” He had to admit she had a point. 

He sent Betty flowers the next day. He wasn’t sure if Adam would read the card so he wrote obliquely. “Congratulations to our newly minted council member. All my warmest wishes to you and to Adam both on your election and your forthcoming nuptials. I know that you’ll make each other very happy. My editor is screaming for chapters so I’ll be taking off at once on a writing retreat but I’ll be thinking of you both on the 24th. With my fondest regards, Jughead.” His writing retreat was in his own apartment. He couldn’t call up Archie or Veronica for fear that Clarence would hear that he’d lied about going out of town but Jenny stopped by to see him every few days to make sure he wasn’t about to pull some stupid stunt like Benjamin in The Graduate. They played scrabble or watched old movies together, becoming good pals. He remembered his dad, shaking and sweating when he tried to quit drinking. Withdrawal always hurt. His made his heart feel sore and wrung out, woke him to breathless panic then tumbled him into dragging, mournful nostalgia. When he finally emerged from his hibernation he went over to Veronica and Archie’s and told them that he had been careless enough to fall in love with Clarence all over again but that he had resolved to move on. He explained that he wanted to spend time with them but he needed not to be in a room with Betty anymore. “I’m an addict guys. I need you to help me. Don’t enable me. It was so hard to let go, to even imagine getting over her. I need to cut her out of my life and move on.” Veronica seemed to be trying to say something but Archie shook his head emphatically. 

“Ok, Jug. Whatever you need. We’re here for both of you… just not together.” Jughead even permitted the bear hug that Archie required from him.

He saw her next, glimpsed her really, at another election party, a year after her own victory. He was always alert to reports from Queens about their campaigning young council member, her housing initiatives and the proposed regulation of loan sharks in the district but his recovery held firm. He hadn’t got in touch. He and Jenny had started dating six months after what he always thought of as the dumpster kiss and things were going pretty well. It was a relationship that had simply emerged, neither of them seeking or pursuing it. At some point it simply came to exist. They had shared interests and didn’t irritate each other. There were no fireworks but they’d had those kinds of love affairs and knew that someone always got burned by the sparks. What they had was a domestic warmth that comforted without consuming. They’d been phone banking for their local congressional candidate so they watched the news coverage at the campaign office, anxiously waiting for their candidate’s victory to be confirmed after the polls closed. Finally it became clear he had won. Excited, Jug picked up Jenny and span her around as she laughed in relief. As he put her down he glanced across the room to see Betty in the doorway with their new congressman, watching them. She smiled, raised a hand and then was gone and he felt his whole world shake under him as if he were on quicksand. He tried to forget the sensation, telling himself it wouldn’t happen again, that it had just been the surprise. He felt disloyal but he wasn’t sure who he was betraying.

From then on he only saw her on tv or on the screen of his laptop, as he read about the City Council. She seemed to be making a difference. He was pleased for her. He wrote another book and made the bestseller lists. He went on interminable book tours. He and Jenny found an apartment to rent together which was more convenient for transportation and close to a park. They talked about getting a dog but somehow they never did. Jenny got her teaching certificate and found a job teaching Civics in a local public school. She was good at it and the kids from her classes that they occasionally saw on the street seemed to respect and like her. It was a decent, relaxed, secure life. He had convinced himself that it would be ungrateful to want more but he suspected that Jenny did. She would come home with advertisements calling for teachers in Costa Rica or Brazil and ask for his opinion. He said that she should do what would make her happy and that he would back her whatever she chose. She replied that she had no idea what would make her happy and Jug guessed that meant that he didn’t. She didn’t send applications for the jobs and things simply trundled on in the same old way.

He was on a book tour, alone in an anonymous hotel room in Duluth after a book signing, when Clarence texted him. It was a weirdly cryptic message. “Running 4 congress. You want in?” He stared at the phone for a full minute unable to process. Then he reached out and touched her name on the screen, his stomach a butterfly house, his blood roaring in his ears. He didn’t reply at once. He needed to talk to Jenny about it, about them, about Clarence and Costa Rica and quicksand.

That it was a remarkably painless breakup said all that needed to be said about the relationship. He got back home and said “Jen, I think we need to talk,” and she agreed with a sad, resigned smile. He told her about the text, that he didn’t know if he was going to join the campaign or even reply but the fact that it sent him into such a tailspin suggested that all wasn’t as it should be between them. She broke down as she told him that she wanted more than the life she was living but that she hadn’t wanted to hurt him by ending it when he’d done nothing wrong. She wanted to explore, to be needed, to find out who she could be. “We just both needed somewhere safe for a while but we’re all recovered now. It’s time to leave the nest,” she said as she pushed his hair out of his eyes affectionately. “But Jughead, you need to be careful. Can you stand to be hurt again by Betty Cooper?”

“I don’t know Jen. I’m not even sure that I’m going to see her. But we both want something more than this don’t we?” 

They found that they didn’t even have any shared possessions to argue about. It was as if they’d always been holding themselves separate from each other, compartmentalised, prepared to disengage. He moved into the room he used as his study, sleeping on a pull out bed amongst his books and pages of notes while Jenny applied for jobs abroad. Every night he’d look at the text message and wonder if he should reply or if he was being a self destructive fool, his dad saying he’d have just one beer. Eventually, on a whim, he selected the shrug emoji and pressed send. She called him back less than five minutes later. “Hey George,” she said as soon as he accepted the call.

“Hey Clarence, what’s up?” he replied, feeling like a high schooler the very first time a girl he liked called him up. Not that they ever had but he imagined it would have felt like this.

“Congress. I could use you on the team but I know I was inappropriate with you before and I don’t expect you to want to revisit all that drama. How’s Jenny?” 

“She’s good, thanks. Busy. You know,” he replied. He could hardly say that his relationship was over because she’d sent him a six word text message. 

“Are you interested? I think we work well together and I’m looking for a strictly professional involvement. I don’t want to disrupt your life. By the way I absolutely loved “Horseradish Road.” I’ve read it three times.”

“Thank you kind reader. I’d have sent you comps if I’d known. Shall we meet up and talk about it. Are you guys still at the place in Long Island City?” 

“No, look that’s the thing. I’m not running for twelfth. Other side of Long Island. I’m running for district one.”

“Isn’t district one the fucking Hamptons?” He was taken aback by that declaration.

“Yeah. Let’s meet up and I’ll explain the plan." 

They arranged to meet at a coffee shop in Tribecca after she attended a committee meeting at City Hall the following afternoon. He told Jenny about it the next morning as she was packing a brown bag lunch to take to school. She looked worried. "I know it isn't my business anymore Jug but I think it might be masochistic. If she had wanted you and not the WASP she had plenty of chances."

"He's a Catholic. Not a WASP."

"Great. She can't even divorce him then. Oh, I should tell you. I have a job interview next week. Women's education in Nicaragua, health, contraception, intimate partner violence that sort of thing. Pretty interesting." 

He grinned. "That's so great Jen. Wow good luck. You're perfect for that. They'd be crazy not to snap you up." As she grabbed her things and headed out he wondered if she was moving forward while he was going backwards.

He met Clarence in a painfully trendy cafe where a guy that looked like a lumberjack except for an incongruous bow tie was cajoling coffee from some Escher nightmare of plumbing and steam. She was already there, smiling and indicating the coffee cup awaiting him. "It's a plain black drip although Waldo judged me hard for not wanting something hipper," His expression must have revealed his incredulity, "Yes, bow tie guy is called Waldo. And he has a perfect right to be... Forsythe." It felt so easy being with her again after all this time, he felt himself unfurling in her presence like a leaf bud in Springtime.

"So, the Hamptons?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Is that Adam's idea?" As he spoke he glanced at her hand where it rested on the table, ringless.

"Adam and I broke up. Just after the election. No, it was ages ago, it's fine. Honestly I've been so busy that I don't even think I noticed. Christ that sounds awful."

He was thunderstruck. "What the hell Clarence? The wedding?"

"I just finally got up the courage to admit that it wasn't what I wanted. He was great, we got on great, it was easy, he was nothing but supportive even though he didn't have a clue why I needed to make my life harder than it needed to be, it was exactly what I should have wanted. But I didn't. Anyway, it's all for the best. I'm really happy. I just don't need the extra complication in my life."

"Why didn't you call me?" Even to his own ears it sounded like a childish whine. She took a deep breath.

"Look, let's have this out once and for all and then just leave it behind. If you’re going to come on board we need to get over this. Agreed?"

"Sure, I guess so." She could be a little intimidating sometimes, even to him and he'd been in a gang.

"Ok, I was crazy in love with you for a long time. I screwed it up between us, self sabotaging I think. It seems like I was scared that if we were together that there wouldn't be space for all the things I wanted to achieve, you’d be enough for me. So that day in the diner I deliberately, unconsciously but deliberately, pushed you away. It absolutely wasn't your fault. My therapist's name for you is Alec, like in Brief Encounter. This unattainable great love that I sacrificed for duty or maybe ambition. Anyway I found someone who was the opposite of you, someone uncomplicated and easy to like, sorry that's rude," he demurred, waving away the apology. He knew he could be difficult. "Anyway I was with Adam because I didn't feel that intensity with him. It was manageable. But I don't want to limit myself to that and I didn’t want to stop him meeting someone who’d love him like he deserves, which incidentally, he did less that three months after we broke up. I suppose there was some part of me that imagined that I'd call you up and tell you I was free and you'd come running, like in some dumb romcom but then Veronica told me you were with Jenny and you’d asked them to keep us in separate parts of their lives. You two looked so happy that election night when I saw you together. I'm really thrilled for you." He drew a breath to speak, "No, just let me get this out, almost done. Anyway I took myself along to therapy, got over Adam, got over you, learned to like myself a bit more and to forgive myself. I know what I want now and there’s really no space for romantic entanglements. But if I'm going to make this insane Congressional run there’s only one person who I really want in my corner. And now I can be your friend without feeling the slightest urge to jump your bones. What do you say?"

That set things pretty straight. She had loved him but that was over. He loved her, he thought that for him it would never be over. She was offering friendship and he needed to decide if that was enough even though it was obviously never going to be enough. "Look I don't know. I mean the Hamptons Clarence, really? Like, first you aren't going to win there, it’s a red district, and secondly who gives a shit anyway? What issues are you going to be dealing with there, the difficulty of storing all their fucking money or the extortionate expense of insuring their diamonds?"

"I hear what you're saying. I said the same thing when Senator Honey asked me to run." He raised an eyebrow. Honey was pretty well known as the kingmaker of the party. if he was asking Clarence for favours that was big news. "Yeah, I know but it isn't because I was flattered. I want to run, there’s only so much I can do on the council, like land use is important, obviously, but I keep crashing into legislation that needs to be overhauled if we're really going to change things. And taxation, Christ Jug, someone needs to get all over taxation policy. Anyway if I run for my district, the twelfth, then it's another primary battle. I hate that, the other candidates are good people in the main. God, even I would rather the district have a person of colour in office, not yet another white lawyer like me. If run in the First then it's not about the primary, Honey says I should take that pretty easily. The election itself will be much more difficult. The incumbent is a white Republican man. If I won I would be in the House making a real difference for the country. And the district isn't just the Hamptons. Have you ever been to any of those little places out near Mastic and Shirley?" He shook his head, "No, poverty is at twenty two percent, shocking figures on health cover. There are a lot of people who need help there and the disparity between rich and poor is huge. If we can get the wealthy living out there to see what needs to be done we can do good work. It could be exciting.”

"I need to think about it Clarence. I'm not sure. Give me a few days?" 

She nodded, "Sure. Talk it over with Jenny. The last thing I want is to cause any trouble between you two. Does she know...?" This would be the moment to tell her that Jenny and he were done but he couldn't find the words. She didn't want him like that anymore and if she thought she'd broken them up she'd be devastated. He just smiled weakly, told her he'd be in touch and headed out into the city to think.

It hadn't been in any doubt really. Of course he'd signed on. Betty "Clarence" Cooper, angel first class, had asked for his help and it would have been sacrilege to refuse her. He asked her to come to the apartment on the evening that Jenny was at her farewell party with her colleagues. She’d been asked to go to Nicaragua. Betty outlined the key strategic aims of her campaign. “I need to get the women’s vote, that’s vital. So childcare, health, education obviously. I can also point to the current guy’s voting record. And I think they’ll be on board with a progressive agenda on LGBTQ issues. And frankly if they’re not, fuck them. The other side will want to scare them with the socialist word but as long as I just talk about concrete policies I don’t think that’ll stick.”

“So a secret socialist?” he smiled. 

She grinned. “This is the revolution Jug…and it’s going to be televised but they won’t notice until the house is full of women and people of colour and gay folks as it should always have been. So, my straight white man pal, are you with the revolution or against us?”

“With you, always, but I have to tell you another grim story from my past before you commit to anything. I don’t want to keep quiet about something that could hurt you if it comes out later.”

“Tell me,” she said without a hint of anxiety.

“Ok so I told you about my mom leaving. About it being just me and my dad, my alcoholic dad.” She nodded, solemnly. “Right so he was in a gang. That is what it is. He was involved in some violence, some drug stuff, I think he was a hired thug rather than any kind of crime boss, you get the idea.”

“But Jug that isn’t anything to do with you. You shouldn’t be ashamed of that.”

“Oh I have worse than that for you Clarence. So things were shitty at home, if you can call it home. I spent some time on the street because it felt safer than being near him. Anyway when he went to jail for covering up a murder, let’s not even get into that, I was on my own. A social worker tried to get me into foster care but it didn’t stick and so I ended up back in the trailer. Things were pretty dangerous. Rival gangs, street battles, knives, riots, that kind of shit. Anyway it was safer for me to be in the gang than unprotected on my own so I joined.”

Her eyes opened wide. “Oh my God, the tatt! I knew that wasn’t from a comic book. That was your gang tattoo.”

“Yeah. So I did some stuff. Some criminal stuff. Delivered drugs, beat people up, I burned down a drug lab. ”

“Ok but you were a kid. Surely your record is sealed?”

“It is. Sealed and expunged.” He took a deep breath. “I did something else. Something terrible.” He swallowed. “I’m about to tell you the worst thing I ever did Betty. It’s bad. If you don’t want me involved afterwards then just say. And please don’t be scared of me...Shit this is hard to say.” Her face was pale as she looked at him but she laid her fingers on his arm for a moment in reassurance before she realised what she was doing and pulled back, blushing a little. “There was a woman in the gang.” He saw her face constrict in terror. “Oh Christ, Betty, no, God not that. She was…no, fuck that, it doesn’t matter what she did. I took my knife and I cut her gang tattoo off her arm. I sliced off a chunk of her flesh. Oh shit I think I’m going to throw up.” 

He ran into the bathroom, wracked with dry heaves. He hadn’t let himself think about Penny for years but now he did he could feel the resistance of her skin against the blade and then the release and the glide as he broke though, the slip of the bloody flesh and the drag of the muscle. There had been so much blood, he’d wiped the blade on his shirt, sticky and ferrous. He could smell it still. He headed into the kitchen to drink a glass of water. Then she was beside him, her hand touching his shoulder before withdrawing nervously.

“Jug, it’s ok. I still want you...in the campaign. It’s in the past. I know who you are now. Really it’s ok.”

“Yeah but if things get nasty it might come out. It’ll be a problem,” he muttered. He was enough of a strategist to know that would be a hard blow to recover from.

“I don’t care. I want you on board and if that costs me some votes so be it. You’ll gain me a hell of a lot more with your words and your support and keeping me sane. So I know the bad thing about you and I accept it and it doesn’t change a thing.” She kept stepping towards him and then back again anxiously.

“Hey Clarence?” She stood still to look at him. “Can I have a hug?” She smiled nervously, and stepped forward into his arms. As he held her she sighed and he felt her relax softly against him. He had despaired of holding her again and he didn’t know if he was going to be able to let her go.

She wriggled free after a few seconds, flushed, her eyes soft and unfocused. “Right, so it’s agreed? We’ll start next week. Come by the office. We’ll strategise.” She smiled the saddest smile he’d ever seen and then she was gone and he was left alone in his empty apartment, longing to have her back in his arms.

And now he was on a bus with her, plunging through the anonymous flat darkness of the Long Island Expressway and there was a real chance that she might actually win this damn thing. She wasn’t a hard sell in many ways. Her beauty shouldn’t make a difference to her electability but this was the United States where a slender young woman with shiny golden hair and clear green eyes was at an advantage. He liked the way she used it, smiling charmingly until she got close enough to stick the metaphorical knife into an overfamiliar tv anchorman or a patronising official. Her opponent in the primary hadn’t taken her seriously until it was far too late, failing to attend debates and town hall meetings, sending harassed underlings to argue his case. It made him look arrogant and disengaged from the district. When he finally agreed to a tv debate his smooth political charm came across as fake compared to the fearless way she answered questions directly and with passion. She could really sell a message. Sometimes watching her he’d be struck by a phrase and go to make a note so she could use it again only to realise that it was one of his. She’d made it entirely her own, just as she had made its author her own. She won the primary by something of a landslide. The general election would be nothing like as easy.

Money was a problem but then it always had been. She still wouldn’t take corporate cash and although it drove him crazy he admired her resolute stance. She wouldn’t even take a personal donation from him. “You’re not from the district Jug. You know the rules.” 

He’d been in the office when an elegant woman that he was sure he recognised came in and pulled out her check book. He went over to smooze her to the best of his meagre ability. “How much will make a real difference?” she asked.

He’d laughed and said “Twenty thousand dollars,” and she’d written the cheque without hesitating for a second.

Gasping he said “I should have said fifty.”

She reached into her purse and pulled out her business card, heavily embossed. When he looked at the name he realised how he knew her. She was Andrea Chisholm, Adam’s mother. She caught his bewildered expression and stuck out her chin defiantly. “She did him a great kindness by letting him go. He’s got a son and another baby on the way. His wife is besotted by him, so devoted. Elizabeth knew she couldn’t give him that so she set him free. He was hurt, of course, but it was for the best. And I want her to win. That gasbag we’ve got at the moment is insufferable. If you need more let me know. I’ll see what I can do. I always thought you made a good team.” With that she was gone.

When he recounted the conversation to Betty she wept and then sent a note with some white gardenias. “Her favourites,” she said. He loved that she remembered that, but then he loved everything about her. That love was bubbling up inside him everyday, pushing the lid off the pan that he kept pushing back down. Sooner or later it was inevitable that it would boil over and create a mess. That was why, as the bus headed away from the event on the North Fork, he had suddenly blurted out that Jenny had left him. She stared at him in shock. “But what happened? You were happy. Fuck Jug. Is this my fault?” She never cursed under normal circumstances, she’d trained herself not to. If the press caught it or she’d forgotten she was miked, it sounded terrible and alienated the senior vote. They didn’t like to hear a lovely young woman blaspheme and swear.

“No, I think it was over before you even sent that text. We were just having a hard time facing it. She’s gone to Nicaragua to teach. Look,” he dragged out his phone to show her the picture Jen had sent just before the Primary, laughing in a bright headscarf, her arms around a group of the local women. She looked younger that when she’d left, more herself. Now he’d told her, he seemed to be unable to shut up. He’d been sitting on the double seat across the aisle from her but he shifted to sit next to her. Maybe she was over him and maybe she wasn’t. He thought she looked at him sometimes in a way that made her protests ring a little hollow and all the repression that he was doing was just fucking exhausting. If he spoke now maybe she’d have to fire him from the team but if that happened at least he could comfort himself that he hadn’t been a coward. This was a relationship which he actively sought out rather than passively accepting like his affair with Jenny. When he was with Betty he felt that he was steering his own course rather than being borne along by the current. He took her hand. She looked terrified. “It wasn’t anything you did Clarence. It was just the fact that I’ve been in love with you since the night I saw you dressed in that nightshirt with those fluffy grey socks and you seduced me and ruined me for other girls or maybe I seduced you. And if you don’t want me anymore that’s fine but you ought to know that I’ve always wanted you, despite the diner meltdowns and the eligible fiancé that I couldn’t compete with and the unbelievably hot kisses next to dumpsters and the refusal to do as your chief strategist fucking tells you. So there you have it." He let go of her hand and looked at his knees, shaking with anxiety and emotion, until he felt her hand brush against his, so softly.

“I have thoughts about this Jug. Lots of thoughts. But I can’t act on any of them here on this bus, in front of the team and that journo from the Suffolk Times.” Her voice was very low. “Go back and sit over there or I won’t be responsible for my actions and the Suffolk Times will be a positively graphic publication next week and not in a way that will help my campaign. Although it might do something for their circulation.”

He moved back to his own seat but he couldn’t stop looking at her. Her cheeks were flushed and pink. She kept biting at her bottom lip, pulling its plumpness back with strong white teeth and then releasing it again before soothing it with her tongue, its pink wetness emerging and retreating. It was unbelievably erotic. Then she looked across at him and her breath caught in her throat and she trembled. He saw the vibration move through her body like a wave. She rolled her eyes upwards and huffed softly. He smirked, perhaps she still had that crush.

Eventually the bus pulled upon front of the HQ in Holbrook and the volunteers dispersed into a variety of beaten up vehicles for their onward journeys. He waited outside the office until she had thanked and hugged each of them. Finally she turned to him nervously. “What now Clarence?” he asked.

She smiled weakly. “I have no idea what we’re doing Jughead. If I’m being honest you make me more than a little crazy; you always have. I don’t want to fight against being happy anymore. I want you and I don’t care what that means for the campaign or my approval rating or whatever. If you still want me I mean. If it isn’t too late.”

“Well we both still have a pulse so it isn’t too late. Your place this time I think. It was mine last time.”

She laughed. “I’m surprised you remember, it was so long ago.”

“Every moment of that night is imprinted in my memory Clarence, every gesture, every sigh, every caress, everything. It always has been.”

She stared at him, eyes wide, lips parted. “Oh my God Jug, that’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard. Come on, let’s go.”

It was different from when they were both so young and inexperienced. They managed to get through the door without tearing at each other’s clothes. She opened a bottle of wine and poured some for them both. He didn’t taste it because he was enjoying the delicious tension of watching her fingers fussing with the stem of her glass. It made him breathless. She laughed. “Oh my god, you’re such a tease. Last time you almost made me orgasm by stroking my ankle, this time you’re doing it just by looking at me. It’s so wicked.”

“I’ve waited years for this Clarence. I intend to relish every second of it. Shall we go upstairs?”

She smiled and led the way. When they got to her bedroom he sat back against the pillows and stared at her. “Are you expecting a show?” she asked, a little intimidated.

“Yes please,” he grinned, unabashed. “I’d like that a lot.” Somehow, him wanting it gave her courage, so she unbuttoned her blouse and let it fall from her shoulders.

He couldn’t maintain the teasing tone. His heart thumped against his ribs and it seemed like it hadn’t been beating for the longest time. He knew he was frowning, could feel the furrow in his brow. He unbuttoned his pants, “Too hard, hurts…,” he muttered and saw that she had to grasp the corner of the dresser so that she didn’t fall, he had made her knees weak. She got down to her underwear before his resolve eroded completely and he was reaching for her, pulling her towards him by her hands. She resisted and he raised an eyebrow before she gestured at his clothes.

"Get naked Jones. You're no use to me like that." He blushed and obliged her, concerned that he was still a disappointment on the abs front. She reached out and touched the hair on his chest. "This is new. It's a good look. I like it." She ran her fingers down, following a line to his belly button and lower where the trail of hair led to the waistband of his boxers. He was breathing hard now, wanting to touch her everywhere at once, paralysed by indecision. "What?" she asked, a smile twitching the corners of her mouth at his obvious confusion.

"I can't decide whether I should target the states above the Mason Dixon or below," he muttered.

"Free states definitely," she replied and he began to kiss the top of her breasts along the line of the lace of her bra. "Ok, Upstate New York likes that but Pennsylvania wants some action too."

He reached around her and unhooked the bra clasp with one hand, smirking as he did it, before beginning to kiss and nuzzle at her breast. He took a nipple into his mouth and when she mewled with pleasure, he released to say "Pittsburg" and moved across to the other whispering "Philadelphia."

It wasn't long before she was writhing on the bed and moaning "Richmond Jug, you can take Richmond.”

It was more thrilling to touch her now than when he had been twenty one years old and frankly amazed that any girl would allow him close to her. He’d learned who he was, come to accept himself, and that meant that he was able to show that self to another person if he chose. It was a degree of intimacy that he couldn’t have imagined back then. As he reached down to put his hand against her he whispered, “I’ve dreamed about you, about exactly this, for years. I want to make you scream and curse, I want you to be as desperate for me as I’ve been for you all this time.”

She grabbed his wrist in a vice like grip and moved his hand to where she wanted it. “I dreamed about you too. I imagined this and touched myself and cried because I didn’t have you. That first time we were together, I’d never come before. I had no idea it could be like that. Oh my god,” his fingers were against her, circling and exploring her and she threw her head back in abandon. Impatiently he disposed of her underwear and positioned himself between her legs, opening her, pushing her thighs apart to put his mouth on her as she cried out and whimpered with the intensity of it. As he teased her, bringing her quivering towards her orgasm only to deprive her of his lips and tongue she began to thrash and mumble incoherently.

“I’m sorry Congresswoman. Could you repeat that for the house? I don’t think we quite caught what you said,” he whispered against her pubic bone.

She found her words for him then and it thrilled him to have dismantled that glossy, professional persona. “You are such an unbelievable little shit. I said fuck me. Do you want me to beg? Because I will. I want you so much it hurts.”

He murmured the Donne quote he’d been saving, “Oh my America, my new found land,” and moved above her. She gasped with pleasure even as she slapped his shoulder. They were both teetering on the edge before long, him with one hand on her breast, the other touching her as he knew she liked best. She opened her eyes wide as she came, fixing him with her gaze and it was that which ended him, her fluttering orgasm around him and that look of such searing openness and trust that he didn’t think he would ever recover. He didn’t know whether he should be ashamed or proud that his eyes were wet with tears as he collapsed alongside her on the mattress.

She rolled onto her side to look at him. “I’m going to calculate how many times we could have done that since Christmas senior year and then I’m going to make a real effort to catch up. Is that ok with you?” He nodded mutely, curling into her side to fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jug quotes a poem in the throes. It’s one of my faves...so funny and raunchy.  
> To His Mistress Going to Bed by John Donne (c 1593)  
> Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy,  
> Until I labour, I in labour lie.  
> The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,  
> Is tir’d with standing though he never fight.  
> Off with that girdle, like heaven’s Zone glistering,  
> But a far fairer world encompassing.  
> Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear,  
> That th’eyes of busy fools may be stopped there.  
> Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime,  
> Tells me from you, that now it is bed time.  
> Off with that happy busk, which I envy,  
> That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.  
> Your gown going off, such beauteous state reveals,  
> As when from flowery meads th’hill’s shadow steals.  
> Off with that wiry Coronet and shew  
> The hairy Diadem which on you doth grow:  
> Now off with those shoes, and then safely tread  
> In this love’s hallow’d temple, this soft bed.  
> In such white robes, heaven’s Angels used to be  
> Received by men; Thou Angel bringst with thee  
> A heaven like Mahomet’s Paradise; and though  
> Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know,  
> By this these Angels from an evil sprite,  
> Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.  
> Licence my roving hands, and let them go,  
> Before, behind, between, above, below.  
> O my America! my new-found-land,  
> My kingdom, safeliest when with one man mann’d,  
> My Mine of precious stones, My Empirie,  
> How blest am I in this discovering thee!  
> To enter in these bonds, is to be free;  
> Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be.  
> Full nakedness! All joys are due to thee,  
> As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth’d must be,  
> To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use  
> Are like Atlanta’s balls, cast in men’s views,  
> That when a fool’s eye lighteth on a Gem,  
> His earthly soul may covet theirs, not them.  
> Like pictures, or like books’ gay coverings made  
> For lay-men, are all women thus array’d;  
> Themselves are mystic books, which only we  
> (Whom their imputed grace will dignify)  
> Must see reveal’d. Then since that I may know;  
> As liberally, as to a Midwife, shew  
> Thy self: cast all, yea, this white linen hence,  
> There is no penance due to innocence.  
> To teach thee, I am naked first; why then  
> What needst thou have more covering than a man.


	4. In the order of the serpent, there'll be neither left nor right

The weeks seemed to pass more rapidly as Election Day drew nearer. Clarence was constantly in motion, knocking doors, speaking to voters on the street, visiting community centres and shopping malls, care homes and offices. He was desperately raising donations as cash haemorrhaged for polling, printing and transport costs. Behind everything they did was the determination to find constructive ways to deal with a new nemesis. When they had a moment to relax or a few hours to sleep he was amazed to find Clarence still there, under his fingers, in his arms. With exactly a week to go before Election Day he woke to her soft kisses on his shoulder. “You know you don’t have to do this, right?” she whispered.

He returned her kiss. “I think I do. Not just for the campaign. I think I need to do it for me too. Draw a line under this shit. Does that make sense?”

She smiled and stroked back his hair, “Ok then. I’ll make coffee. We’re both going to need it.”

She was heading off to knock on voters’ doors in Shirley to either effusive endorsement or ill-informed abuse while Jughead travelled to a recording studio in Manhattan to expose his most personal and painful memories of a childhood of neglect to the American public. The presenter was a comedian but the podcast was known for peddling raw, personal stories of addiction and trauma. It was true that he hoped that telling his story might help him to move past his feelings of insecurity and inadequacy but it was equally true that he would never have forced himself to do it if it hadn’t been for his inviolable need to stand by Betty Cooper. The host introduced him as he cringed. “So we have a bestselling novelist turned political activist with us. You’ll know Forsythe Jones best for his disturbing tales from the hinterland of apparently Rockwellian small towns; his last novel, Horseradish Road, was on the New York Times bestseller list for months at the start of the year and his first book For The Snakes has been made into a movie that is scheduled for release next spring. He’s with us today, however, to talk about a recent autobiographical article in the New Yorker which really captured the national discourse in the last few weeks. Now I’m told I’m supposed to call you Jughead. Is that right?” Jug murmured in the affirmative, his mouth dry. “Jughead it must have been painful to relive the experiences you write about in this piece.”

In the essay he’d written about his childhood, his adolescence. He wrote about fear and cold, about waking to yelling every day so that even now waking to calm, to softness and affection sometimes made him anxious. He wrote about hiding from bullies in bathroom stalls, about letting teachers think he was dumb so he didn’t have to admit that he did his homework without books or computers, sitting out on the stoop in freezing weather because inside his dad’s drunken lurching made him sick with dread. He wrote about hunger, the panic of an empty belly as well as the pain, about drinking gallons of water to try to trick himself that he wasn’t starving. He wrote about the humiliation of sneaking discarded food from a trash can. He wrote about not being protected when he knew himself to be weak and how it left scars that took a long time to heal. He’d hidden how bad things were from everyone but now he spoke about it honestly for strangers. There were moments during the recording when he could barely keep it together and only the thought of Sweetpea and the guys listening and calling him a pussy prevented him from weeping. When he had to recount his initiation into the gang and the beating that he had taken and then given to others in their turn he found it hard to swallow down his shame. When he talked about his mother’s abandonment his voice cracked despite the fact that he would have sworn that he was over it. The presenter had no such qualms about tears and the recording had to stop twice for him to collect himself. They talked about the legacy of neglect, how it bred violence and alienation. They discussed what communities should do better. The final question was the one that Jughead knew he needed to nail. “So Forsythe, Jughead, these are such painful memories. Why did you decide to write about this now?”

That was the million dollar question. The morning after he and Betty had reconnected, he woke beside her and recalled that the first time this had happened things had gone off track very quickly. She might panic and push him away again. He needed to be prepared to counter that impulse. He slid his arm out from under her and crept from the bedroom to secure sustenance without needing to venture out to a diner. He figured out the intricacies of her coffee machine and, as he waited for the drips to accumulate into a worthwhile beverage, he checked the news feed on his phone. Within seconds he was kissing her awake and showing her the coverage of DuPont's withdrawal from the Congressional race. Apparently he had made a terse statement the previous evening, while they had been distracted, saying that he was forced to withdraw his bid to serve his community in Congress for a second term for family reasons. He followed up that shock announcement by saying that the Republican Committee had selected Ms Donna Sweett, previously his Communications Director, to take his place on the ballot. Ms Sweett had tweeted a bland message of support and gratitude to DuPont and announced a press conference to be held at a Long Island hotel later that morning. "I need to get down there Betty, take a look at her, make some connections. Is that ok? Are you ok? No regrets?”

"None. I’m scared but only because I want this so much. I’m not going to run away from it again. Not gonna lie though, I'd been planning how to get you to come back to bed. Still, since you're so committed to the democratic ideal I won't hold you back." He stared at her, torn for a moment and then threw himself back onto the bed and took her in his arms. "Fuck democracy," he mumbled as he hooked his thumbs into her underwear.

"Not just democracy I hope," she giggled.

He got to the hotel in Bridgehampton rather late, just as the ladies and gentlemen of the press were filing in to a conference room. The building looked like a wedding cake and he was dishevelled in yesterday's clothes. He'd barely had time to shower and the tall blonde guy from Sweett's staff who was wrangling the journalists gave him a condescending look as he snuck in and took up a position at the back of the room. He was struggling to focus on proceedings when images from his morning kept flashing before his mind's eye. He'd hear Donna begin an answer about why DuPont had withdrawn from the contest by saying that he had been like a father to her but then he remembered Betty looking up at him through a curtain of golden hair as she kissed his hips before she...Suddenly he was struggling to maintain his equilibrium like a high school boy on the first warm day of the year when the girls all decided to come to class in short skirts and camisole tops. Sweett was talking about the importance of individual responsibility and free enterprise and he found that all he could think about was his girl's fingers tangled through his hair as she whimpered against his neck. He thought he might need to step out when he became aware of Jonathan, DuPont's erstwhile campaign manager, beside him. Jonathan inclined his head to the exit meaningfully and walked away, Jughead following. The ousted staffer stood on the terrace looking out over the landscaped grounds, not even glancing towards Jughead who broke the silence, saying "She did ok out of this. I thought you might have gotten the nod."

Jonathan snorted a laugh. "Wrong ethnicity for district one. She's exactly right for the Hamptons. Privileged like your girl, but twice as ruthless. If DuPont had been in Congress during this administration I would've got a chance in the mid terms, somewhere that Frank would call "urban." Won't happen now. Four years of work down the drain. You know he can’t even tweet? That’s all me. But I'm out. Her guy's in. The tall blonde dude. Did you see him? Bret."

"What do you want Jonathan?" asked Jughead, not prepared to listen to more of his whining. Why did he expect compassion when he never showed any?

"Just an observation. Our office didn't leak until seventy five days out from the election. Seems significant." He smiled wryly and walked away with his hands in his pockets. Jug wondered what the message was. He caught the rest of the press conference and was impressed if appalled by Donna. She was a slick operator and she gave the party line with some conviction. Betty's plan of securing the female vote was pretty much shot. She needed to get the initiative back. 

He grabbed the blonde guy, Bret, by the elbow and introduced himself. “Oh yes, Forsythe isn’t it? A little infiltration so early. We must have you worried.”

“Not at all. I wanted to introduce myself at the first opportunity. We should set up a debate. Let the voters see your candidate in action. When’s good?”

“We’re three points ahead Forsythe. We don’t need that. We’re not here to give a platform to some socialist bleeding heart. You run your campaign and I’ll run mine.”

“Ok, fine. I’m sure the press will be interested in why a new candidate won’t debate. I’ll give them your number so you can explain it.” As he walked away he strategised. They’d have to have a press conference of their own. He headed back to HQ to plan it.

Their own conference, in a community centre in Mastic, was less bougie than Donna Sweett’s but more authentic. Fewer pastries, more policies. After speaking about health care for a few minutes she dealt with questions about the Middle East, about her stance on renewables and finally about the provenance and cost of her purse. She tackled every question with a practised calm that made Jughead’s heart swell with admiration for her. Of course her purse was made in the US by a women’s cooperative. He’d have expected nothing less. She repeated and then spelled the name of the website for the ladies and gentlemen of the press, holding up the bag like a presenter on the shopping channel, taking the question seriously because her endorsement would help folks who needed it most. She looked around for any final questions and saw a hand raised at the the back of the room. She nodded in acknowledgement and a woman’s voice rang out. “Ms Cooper, can you confirm that your campaign director, Mr Jones, is an ex hoodlum whose criminal record includes charges for wounding and arson? Surely that speaks to a lack of judgement on your part. Or perhaps your campaign has links to organised crime?” He knew her well enough and watched her sufficiently closely to see the flash of anger in her eyes but she recovered quickly, glancing across at him. In some corner of his mind perhaps he’d always known it would be him that brought her down, ruined her chance to make a difference. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “I’d like to thank you for that question. It gives me an opportunity to talk to you about…well, about my political philosophy I suppose.”

“My most abiding principle is my belief in human potential. I think we can all achieve great things if we are given the opportunity. My campaign manager, Mr Jones, is the living embodiment of that belief. His story is not one that I have any right to tell but it’s enough to say that he was not given the opportunities that a child in this great nation should be given. Despite that he survived and that is testimony to his resilience and his resourcefulness. When he was finally given the most fundamental opportunities that a citizen should have, he grasped them and he made himself into a wonderful writer, a graduate of one of our great universities and what’s more a good man and a devoted public servant. He is living proof that we have enormous untapped resources of talent and promise in our country and all we need to do to allow it to blossom is ensure that all children and young people have a safe roof over their heads, enough food to eat and access to education. That is our moral duty to each other but it’s also in our self interest because as a consequence we get to benefit from the creativity, skill and inspiration that these young people will bring to our communities. So the fact that Mr Jones had a difficult youth is nothing to be ashamed of when you see the fine citizen that he has become. We should, however, be ashamed that not all children get the chance to show their true potential because they don’t have those fundamental resources or because they are victimised by the criminal justice system or because they become sick or die without adequate health care or decent housing or nutrition.

“Another of my beliefs is the rule of law. So in our country the law says that the record of some juvenile criminal offences can be sealed so that youthful mistakes don’t prevent an adult from contributing to society. If any of you disagree with that law you have legal means to seek its alteration through the ballot box. You do not have the right to disregard a law when it suits you. So the question that I was just asked is prima facie evidence of a criminal offence which has been committed, not by Mr Jones who you seek to discredit and pillory as a criminal, but by you ma’am. As with any other criminal offence it is my duty to see to it that this one is pursued through our legal system to its fullest degree, a duty that I plan to discharge immediately. I’m sorry ladies and gentlemen for that lengthy answer but I think it was apposite. Oh and in case it is of interest to those of you who write for gossip publications rather than the serious press, Mr Jones is not simply my campaign manager. We’re in a serious personal relationship… Sorry, that’s a weasling politicians’ phrase. Mr Jones is the man I love. Now, if that’s all, I think we’re done here.”

Now Jughead was in a sound studio in Manhattan still dealing with the fallout of that question and the brave, beautiful, thrilling answer that she had given. He answered the interviewer’s question. “I had no option but to deal with this now. I would never have talked about any of this unless my hand was forced. I’m in love with a woman who is running for Congress. Her opponent decided to use my childhood, everything we’ve been talking about, to try to discredit her. I grew up in exactly the conditions that she is trying to alleviate. That’s considered, by some people, to be a character flaw on her part. I think the opposite is true. She’s stood by me even when my past was brought up as a weapon to hurt her. She’s loyal. She’d never betray anyone’s trust. The opposite happens to be the case with her opponent as anyone who reads Newsday found out a few weeks ago. To use the ill health of a man who had been nothing but supportive and generous to her, who trusted her, just so that she could steal his job, wow, that’s cold. I don’t think the guy with an expunged juvie record is the one folks should be scared of. I’m also hoping to show folks who have had the privilege never to be poor and desperate that we’re the same. If you’ve ever said you’re starving when your entree was delayed fifteen minutes in a restaurant you might want to reflect on how it would feel to use that phrase without hyperbole; think about your duties to people in our community who are really hungry. To be an idealist for a second, in a representative democracy like ours we should choose the best of us, the wisest and most compassionate, to make our laws. We need to ask ourselves do we want someone who betrays a man who she said was like a father to her for her own advantage or do we want the person who saw something in me, a guy from a trailer park, who stands by him regardless of any slur or threat? So that’s why I had to talk about it. An election is a chance to choose what’s right. It’s one of those really clear opportunities to show who you are, what you value, what you’ll stand for.”

At the press conference, when his past had first been brought up to hurt her, he had feared that this might be the thing that tore them apart. Maybe she would sacrifice them if that was the only way to do good for the country. As she left the hall where the press had been gathered, he joined up with her, matching his pace to hers. Several staffers rushed forward to surround them but she waved them away impatiently. “Not now guys. Give us a moment, ok?” and they melted away.

Jug put a hand on her shoulder, grounding her. “Shit, I’m sorry Clarence. If you want my resignation you’ve got it, you know that, right? Oh and I love you too by the way, it’s not the most romantic way to tell you but there it is.”

She turned to look into his eyes and he knew that it was going to be ok. She wouldn’t cut him loose. “I think it’s romantic as all get out. Your resignation is the last thing I want Jug. They’ve made me good and mad now. I want to know how they got your expunged record. We need to get the reporter’s name.” 

“On it,” he replied, gesturing to a staffer and making an “eyes on” gesture as he pointed to the journalist across the lobby. 

“I want to make sure we file a complaint. I’m going to make them sorry they went after you.” He wondered what it said about him that he was pretty turned on by the warrior queen attitude.

“Yeah, I was thinking about that. These leaks and unwelcome revelations. Cui bono?” 

“Oh get you with your Latin. Pretty fancy for a street thug,” she smiled. “Actually it’s an unbelievably hot combination, you’re erudite but you still might use brass knuckles on a person.” He flushed and she stared at him. “Shit, you actually have, haven’t you?” She leaned a little closer to whisper, “I know it’s wrong but I’m so turned on,” and he spluttered and almost fell over his own feet.

They got to the car where they could begin to pull apart the clues. The staffer that he had dispatched trotted over and whispered “Joan Berkeley, Newsday,” as Jug held the car door open. He nodded in acknowledgement and slammed the door.

She was already planning. “So we’ll try to get the journalist to reveal her source which, if she has any gumption she’ll refuse to do. Suspicious though, all the leaks in these campaigns. Can it be the same source if they’re damaging both sides?” she pondered.

“It’s not both sides though is it Betty? What did that first leak achieve? It got DuPont to hand over the candidacy to Sweett which he would never have done unless his hand had been forced. Seventy five days Jonathan said to me. If they'd swapped horses with fewer than seventy days his name would have still been on the ballots not hers. She'd have been a write-in at best. Pretty convenient timing. And now, this reveal hurts your campaign and makes it more likely that Sweett will swing the vote. So it’s all to her benefit isn’t it? She’s who benefits. I’ll try to get a face to face with Berkeley's editor, maybe I can get them to see the big picture.”

The next day he’d sat in the editor’s office with Joan Berkeley who was trying to come off all Woodward and Bernstein. “Look Joan,” he said patiently, “you’re being played. You were given my record so that the election could be manipulated. If you’re determined to protect your source don’t kid yourself that you’re defending truth and justice and the American way or some shit like that. You’re letting some rich white Republican who doesn’t give a shit about you, send you to jail for her convenience.” The pronoun made her jump a little. “Yeah Joan, whoever actually handed over the information, we’re pretty sure Donna Sweett was behind it."

She stuck out her chin defiantly. “I’ve never even met Ms Sweett other than being at a press conference she gave. If you were interested in democracy you wouldn’t be trying to take away my first amendment rights."

He warmed to his theme now. "Your contribution to the political discourse is to grease the path of another Republican into the House. Don't you dare cast yourself as a freedom fighting member of the fourth estate. If it was Bret Weston Wallis who gave you the file and you offered him anonymity I’d say you have a problem of journalistic integrity. You’re a reporter, why not report that?” He looked at the editor. “When you guys work out what the real story is give me a call. Think about how I might know that this late replacement candidate is the source. You’ll catch up at some point I expect. And because I’m feeling generous, try getting in touch with DuPont’s campaign manager to help you out.” 

He was pretty sure it had been Weston Wallis who’d passed on the details. He’d reasoned that the information would most likely have come from local law enforcement back home so he’d called his dad the evening before. “Hey FP, everything ok?” he’d asked, keeping it light.

His dad began to tell him about JB’s latest installation at a gallery in Detroit, using terms like conceptual and immersive like he was presenting an arts documentary. Jug knew all the details because he spoke to his sister too but he knew FP liked to boast so he let him run on. His sobriety had held for almost nine years so Jug was beginning to trust it a little but trauma didn’t heal overnight. It would take a while. He got to the point of the call. “So, anyone been asking after me?”

“Yeah actually. Some big, blonde dude. Said he was a pal of yours. He asked Sweetpea and Fangs. He was wearing a necktie. They said he didn’t seem like a fed but they didn’t like the look of him anyway. They said they’d never heard of you. You in trouble?” 

“No, no trouble. There’s just someone trying to rake up ancient history. How’s work?” He listened to his dad talk about his job in a diner and the enduring stupidity of the average customer while he navigated on his phone to Sweett’s website. Scrolling through images from the campaign trail he found one where she was standing just in front of the guy he’d thought of as her consiglieri when he first encountered him. He took a screen grab and, as soon as he could decently end the call to his dad, he sent it to Sweetpea with “Recognise this dude?” as the message. 

Fifteen minutes later, as he was perusing take out menus, he got his answer. “Douche, asking after you. Said he was a pal. Bullshit. Gave him nothing. You want we should hurt him?” 

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath and texted a reply, “On no account should you harass or in any way interfere with Mr Weston Wallis.” The last thing Jug needed was subpoenaed phone records implicating him in a hit. As soon as the text had been sent he hit the call button. When Sweetpea picked up he said quickly, “You got my message. Is that perfectly clear?”

“Whatever,” grumbled his friend, clearly disappointed. 

“Is he still around then?”

“He was here yesterday. He spent the afternoon at the Sheriff’s office. Pretty chummy with Minetta. We could hit him in secret, so no-one knew it was us.”

“Sweetpea, don’t fucking hurt him. If he needs hurting I’ll do it myself.” He meant it too. Deep inside the scrappy street fighter still lurked. Bret might have the weight advantage over him but he looked like he had a glass jaw.

His meeting with the editor seemed to pay off because three days later Jughead was awakened at five in the morning by his phone vibrating on the nightstand. When he tried to grab for it he found, to the surprise of his sleep addled brain, that he had an armful of blonde. He was still getting accustomed to that. He grinned, kissed her and freed a hand to answer the call. When he saw the name on the screen he roused Betty and sat upright, holding the phone in front of her face so she could read "Sen. Honey" on the screen. Her eyes widened and she scrambled to sit, clutching the sheet as if the elder statesman would be able to see her in her rumpled deshabille. Jug put the call onto speaker as he answered. "Senator, how can I help?"as brightly as he could manage when his mouth was as dry as Death Valley.

“Jones, sorry to call so early, I just took a call from Arthur at Newsday." Jug smiled ruefully. Of course all these important old rich guys were on first name terms. "He was doing me the courtesy of running a story past me before it hits the stands. Our wives are on a committee together so he doesn't want to get in trouble with Kathy by blindsiding me. Anyway the word is that Ms Sweett sabotaged DuPont by briefing against him and now she's trying to steal the election from Ms Cooper by briefing against you. They have campaign phone records and emails from a source close to DuPont, Jonathan something. Apparently hell hath no fury like a congressman scorned. He’s getting his revenge. Ms Cooper comes out of it pretty well but they can’t write the story without mentioning your... umm, less than exemplary juvenile record. I wanted you to prepare yourself. You might want to make a statement."

Betty grabbed the phone from his hand before he could respond and replied for him. "Thanks for the heads up Senator. Surely this story will kill Donna's campaign anyway?"

Honey chuckled mirthlessly. "Ah Elizabeth. If only it were true that the fine voters of this country would refuse a candidate their vote if they were exposed as a criminal or lacking in moral character. Sadly, in my long experience, it isn't the case. A good portion of these folks will vote for her even if she is revealed to eat babies as long as she promises to vote for tax cuts. Still if Mr Jones can show your voters something of what you see in him maybe it will play to your advantage. Some voters enjoy romance, unless you two just met up at dawn for early yoga or something. Keep me in the loop. Best of luck to you both."

Once the call was ended Jughead took the phone from her hand gently and laid it on the nightstand. "What do you see in me Clarence?" he murmured as he kissed her shoulder.

"Nothing that I'd be happy for you to share with the electorate George," she smiled as she lay back against the pillows and he positioned himself over her.

Later he made her French toast and ran the idea of the article past her. “I’ve been working on it on and off for years but I guess I never felt the need to publish. Now there’s a need.” She read it and cried and he edited and worked it up to publication standard. If he had to show the world what she saw in him, defend her judgement that he was worthy of her, it needed to be completely honest and vulnerable. 

He sent the essay to his dad and asked his blessing to publish before he showed it to his agent. It wasn’t only himself that he exposed in the writing. FP called him up, thanking him for writing about his sobriety at the end of the article and telling him how proud he was of his son, the writer. "I deserve nothing from you boy. That you and your sister let me be in your life is a great blessing. You write your truth. Maybe one day you can write mine too.” Jug felt the strength in that statement, his dad knowing that there was nothing that could be done to put right the past but still being determined to face the struggle of trying to do better.

“I’m proud of you Dad. It’s a great thing, you know, to keep trying every day despite everyone else’s expectations and judgements. When this campaign’s over I’m going to bring someone to meet you. Someone important to me. That ok?”

“It’d be an honour to meet a congresswoman Jug,” FP laughed. He had never been as oblivious as Jughead had imagined.

The article helped the polls. It looked too close to call for a few days and then Bret was on the line, finally acceding to the request for a debate. Jughead said he’d pass on the message. “You don’t need to do it Betts. We’ll take them down anyway,” he said, reaching for her hand.

“I want to. It’s what I got into this for. To try to show people that their arguments don’t stand up to scrutiny. Anyway I paid a lot of money for my law degree so I might as well use some of those skills. Let’s do it.”

For Donna the debate was something of a car crash. She clearly felt on safe ground with the first question about the economy, spouting rhetoric about tax cuts and entrepreneurship. Betty waited politely for her to finish before explaining to the audience that when the right talked about tax cuts they should mentally rephrase that to tax postponements. “You’re going to have to pay, if you refuse to pay to educate children then you will pay for higher policing and incarceration costs, if you refuse to pay to explore green energy then you’ll pay when the sea rises and your place in the Hamptons is under six feet of water, if you won’t pay for maternity support then you’ll pay to rehire and retrain workers. It’s a confidence trick. Pay now or, believe me, you will pay more later and there will be a whole lot of misery on the way to it. As to entrepreneurship, well that’s all about innovation and skills but the lack of investment in education restricts skills, student debt prevents the best from rising to the top of their fields and social conservatism limits innovation. You have to let people be who they are and work how they choose if they are going to innovate. Creators are unconventional people, you have to nourish that if you are going to benefit from it.” Donna had only parroted phrases to counter the spirited response and she looked weak. Eventually Sweett began to look ragged and flustered and Betty played one of her strongest cards. At one point she whispered, off mike “Hey, it’s ok. You’re doing so well. Just take a sip of water.” Of course she knew that the lip readers would tweet that immediately, #kind. The other thing was that it prevented Donna from taking a sip of water no matter how much she needed to. Jughead was smirking throughout the debate until he thought the expression might just stick forever. 

Finally Donna snapped, talking over the moderator who tried to quiet her to no effect. “You aren’t fit to represent this community. These people need a Congress member who can focus on the work not just getting what she needs from some ex gang member criminal. What does he do to you that you’d risk your career for it? You’re clearly a sex maniac who shouldn’t be trusted to make good decisions when your judgement is so clouded by lust. You can’t go two hours, let alone two days, without it so how will you even get to the Capitol Building, let alone represent the district?”

Betty stared at her coolly for a moment before turning to the moderator. “Sir, may I answer Ms Sweett’s... points?” When she received a nod in the affirmative she turned back to Donna. “I’m surprised at your tone Ms Sweett and your ad hominem attack. I can see that you’re becoming overwrought and emotional so I am not offended but you should bear in mind that political discourse should focus on issues regardless of the poor example set by some in your party. Sadly you seem to have a rather insalubrious interest in other people’s private lives. I wonder why that is? One for the psychologists I suppose. If you want to make character the issue I am perfectly content for the voters to choose between us solely on that basis. I believe that my values are apparent from my conduct and I fear that the same is true of yours. If anyone needs more detail they could always ask Congressman DuPont for his views.” 

Shortly after the debate wrapped up the aforementioned Congressman DuPont tweeted “Cooper for Congress.” Jug called Jonathan to say thanks even as the Republican Committee blamed hacking. Some people thought that tweet ensured Betty’s landslide victory, others thought it was Jughead’s article, some thought Donna had thrown away the election with her creepy interest in Betty’s sex life; in any case District One was dark blue on the map the morning after voting. After finally throwing out the stragglers from the victory party Jughead and Betty celebrated in all the ways that Donna was no doubt imagining as she pored over the positions vacant ads the next day. 

When Jughead and Betty made good on his promise to visit the trailer park to visit with his dad, Sweetpea and Fangs had made a banner, “Sunnyside welcomes the future President and the First Gentleman.” Jug had a terrifying feeling that the joke might be prophetic.


End file.
